


A Year to Forget

by alSaqr



Series: The Exile [4]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blood, Canon Divergence, Canon Temporary Character Death, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27580301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alSaqr/pseuds/alSaqr
Summary: Or: The Year That Never Was, from the Redjay's POV.A set of loosely-connected one-shots.
Series: The Exile [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/20309
Comments: 21
Kudos: 3





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _“Judging others is easy because it distracts us from the responsibility of judging ourselves.”_   
>  **― Charles F. Glassman**

**NEPAL, 2006**

They couldn’t find the Torchwood team.

As Peter watched the men loosely under his command search through the snow and the trees and the rocks, he wondered how pissed the Master would be if they came back completely empty-handed. Would he kill one of them? Their families? _Both?_ Make it wish as though they hadn’t been born, instead? Peter didn’t know where his wife was, and hadn’t in the three days since Saxon - no, the _Master_ had killed the US President. What scared him the most was that he had the feeling that the Master _did_ know where she was, as well as every minute detail down to her shoe size and how long she could hold her breath. (And she’d never been any good at holding her breath in the pool.)

And so he ordered the troops to dig deeper and search harder and break out the dogs, and he hated himself just a little more than he had when he had woken up. Because the harder they looked, and no matter what they found, more people were either dead or about to die by that bastards’s hand. And he was beginning to pray that they _were_ dead, because at least then he wouldn’t be handing lambs to the slaughterhouse.

Peter hated himself more every day he spent aboard the Valiant; already, he was finding little left to like.

He didn’t quite understand who they were searching for, or why they were in Nepal. Most of the things they were forced to do for the Master came with just ‘need to know’ instructions. Once upon a time - a better time - he had worked security for the British Government, and so he knew the _name_ Torchwood, but he knew nothing much about them. Some kind of Men in Black, alien woo-woo hunters? He’d always written it off as complete and utter bollocks.

Except of course he believed in aliens, now. The whole world believed in aliens; feared aliens. Ten percent of the fucking world had been _killed_ by aliens. But if they were supposed to have been Britain’s line of defence against this alien shit, then where had they been a month ago? Six months ago? Before the world had been invaded by those fucking balls of knives and their sadistic Master? No fucking where.

“Hey, Pete! I found something!”

He half-ran, half-slid down the tightly packed snow, filling his boots with what swiftly became puddles of chilled water. The man who had waved him over - James? - had one gloved hand in the air and the other wrapped around the leash of a golden retriever that was losing its mind trying to dig through the snow. The silly thing’s tail was wagging like crazy; it, after all, was just doing what it had been trained to do. The dogs didn’t know what was wrong. Or rather - the animals seemed to know better than them, but when put to a task, he supposed they could take their mind off it. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting the dog to find, or what he was hoping for. It was cold enough that he could hardly feel his toes, and so survivors seemed less likely than bodies. But it felt like defeat to admit that he was silently hoping they were dead already, he thought again.

The Master couldn’t do more to them if they were already dead; and they wouldn’t be forced to carry out those orders.

It turned out to be an arm, wearing a torn up jacket that was soaked through by the snow. Small, with darker skin that was starting to take on a blueish tint. He wracked his mind, trying to remember the members of Torchwood they were supposed to be looking for. Two men - both Caucasian - two Caucasian women and an Asian woman. Was this one of the women, or at least what was left of them? Peter dropped to his knees, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and barking at someone to pass him one of the shovels. With the dog, James and some other young recruit he didn’t recognize, they began to gingerly dig, trying not to put metal through skin, while the retriever loyally tried to drag the body attached to the arm out of the rubble. _Well_ , thought Peter, _at least one of us is happy._ It took another couple of minutes, but they soon had the body laid out on a tarp, cold as ice.

Peter scratched the dog behind the ears - ignoring the guilty rush of endorphins - and gestured at their newly-made pit. “Keep searching here,” he told the men around him. “The other four must be around here somewhere.”

Certain that - with varying degrees of willingness - his order would be followed, he sank to his knees beside the body, studying them intently. Someone was bringing over a first aid kit, but from the look of them it would be a waste of time. Snow froze their clothes to their body, and their chest was still. Peter rested their hand there, and then tried to wriggle it under their clothes to try and feel for a pulse. _By now,_ he reasoned, _exposure hardly mattered._ Doing so, he figured out it was a woman, like he’d thought, with an uncut bob of dark hair and snow goggles hanging limply around her neck. A nasty cut had torn right through her layers of warm clothing, but the blood had crystalized on her skin. He patted her down, quickly divesting her of a revolver still holstered to her hip - old-looking, not modern - and some sort of GPS device that had gotten wet and didn’t want to turn back on. Dumping them on the ground he shuffled out of the way of the soldier with the med-kit, letting them check the woman over for some sign of life that they almost certainly weren’t going to find. One out of five. Maybe the Master will be happy with that. He tried to reassure himself, unsuccessfully. No one could have survived this. So they’re all gonna be dead. That’s probably what the bastard wants. Unless he wanted to kill them himself.

“The fuck is this s’posed to be?”

Peter dragged himself to his feet and glanced down the hole in the direction of the surprised voice. Someone in a balaclava and goggles stared up at him, with what looked suspiciously like a bow held in his hands. Or, rather, it had been a bow. Now, it was two pieces of curved wood, splintered down the middle with some kind of string dangling from one end. One half of what had been a bow was stained red, and he wondered if that was what had torn open the woman’s arm. Seemed reasonable enough. Sharp, too, broken wood. At a loss he shook his head, and pointed at the pit. _We can solve that mystery later. Maybe._

“Forget about that, find the rest of the bodies.”

“There ain’t’nt any. We’ve been here for hours, Peter.”

It was true. Three hours, and they had one body and a broken fucking bow to show for it. It was beginning to look a lot like Torchwood had either escaped, or the Master had made a mistake. Maybe they weren’t in Nepal at all. Or maybe they’d not fallen for his trick. (The Master had been crowing to the Captain about how he’d lured his team into a trap. And then there had been a lot of screaming. They had all gotten used to the screaming. Screaming, and swearing.) Either way, he didn’t much want to be the one to voice either option.

“And do you wanna be the one who tells the Master that Torchwood isn’t here?”

Indistinct mumbles from everyone who could hear him was his only response, nobody wanting to be _that one_ that said the wrong thing and wound up volunteering for the job. Peter sighed as he realised - or rather, admitted to himself - that the job was going to end up being his. He started to steel himself for that, feeling sick to the stomach about how the Master would take it, as the rest of the troops continued to look for bodies. A few joined him in the pit, the dead woman ignored, as they tried to work out if Torchwood had all been caught in the same spot of avalanche, or tried to help each other before the snow had fallen. He didn’t expect so; he imagined it was more likely that the dirt and trees and rocks surrounding their search site had spread them far across the mountain.

He rubbed his wrist, where the communication device that would signal the Valiant to pick them up seemed to be digging into his wrist. It was metal on skin, and fucking freezing. Should he call now, report what they’d found and promise to keep looking? Or wait until the last possible moment, when the Master contacted them himself?

The decision was made for him, as the sound of somebody calling his name insistently shook him from his reverie. Peter pulled himself to the edge of the pit, tossing his shovel to someone, and looked around to see the medic that had been hunched over the body trying to signal him over. With a sigh he pulled himself to his feet, and was surprised as he dusted himself off to notice that the medic - a woman - had taken her mask off and had her ear pressed to the woman’s frozen, bloody chest. When Peter jogged off she looked up at him, amazed, and then gestured at the body in a mix of surprise and cautious horror.

“She’s - she’s still _breathing_.”

Peter blinked. “What?”

“There’s a pulse,” the woman repeated, shaking her head in confusion. “Pretty quick one, almost like it’s going double-speed. Which isn’t right, cold as she is…”

“Is she going to live?!” he snapped, not giving a damn whether or not it was scientifically possible or not.

He gave the woman a pitying look - _I’m sorry for what’s going to happen to you -_ and snapped at someone to bring him a thermal blanket or ten. The medic began to strip her of the cold clothes as soon as they arrived, taking over his commands to make sure that they got stabilized. The woman was quickly bundled up, her wrists cuffed together despite the medic’s protests, and someone was rubbing her hands, trying to get feeling and heat back into them. _She might lose fingers,_ he thought to himself, _or toes. She’s frozen. No one can survive that._ If she was lucky, she’d die despite all of their efforts, before she had to see the Master. Someone ran off to start up the helicopter again, and Peter left them alone to go and place the call he very much didn’t want to make.

It took a second for the weird alien tech he was wearing to connect, but as soon as it did, Peter quickly gave his security codes and asked to be transferred to the Master himself. This whole situation was really, really fucking weird… and he had the feeling the Master might just be interested enough not to take it out on them.


	2. At First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Rivalry doesn't help anybody."_   
>  **\-- Peter Jackson**

**THE VALIANT, 2006**

“Well, well… look what the cat dragged in…”

Rodageitmososa had never felt so _cold_ in her entire life.

It was cold, and too bright, and the only reason she was sure that she still had all of her fingers and toes was that they all hurt more than she cared to admit. The rest of her felt numb and clumsy, and it took all of her willpower to remember _why_. Even still, she had no idea where she was, and as she snapped her head around the blinding light, no idea who was talking to her.

Roda had tried to put the Torchwood team at ease, after everything that had gone down after Abaddon. Told them that Jack would be back - he always was, wasn't he? But it hadn't been enough. They had been angry, hurt; especially after what had gone down between them all. She understood their pain - of course she did, she missed him too - and she knew that Jack had left them with more questions than answers. Now, they all knew that he couldn't die, and had seen him survive... a lot. And they had looked to _her_ for answers, as if knowing Jack the longest (on a technicality) meant that she would miraculously understand exactly why he'd run away. But she had no idea. From what Gwen had told them, it _sounded_ as though he'd run off chasing a TARDIS... but whose? The Doctor's? Presumably. But why? If he'd wanted to go somewhere, he'd only had to ask her and she would have _taken_ him there in hers.

And then he had left her in charge of the team. In _loco parentis,_ or so it felt. In charge of a group of humans who were hurt, confused and _deeply_ in need of therapy; not, she supposed, that she could talk. A team - friends - who wanted her to give them answers, and who had so much less experience of death and loss than she or Jack, despite their choice of occupation. And there had been a lot to deal with. Owen _not_ being fired; Ianto moping around because Jack was gone; Gwen locking herself away with Rhys for half a week, guilt eating her apart inside; Tosh the only one of the group who was keeping it together, but still struggling to understand travelling back in time to the Cardiff Blitz. It had struck Roda, there and then, that she did not know how to run things. Even those years she'd spent in politics hadn't prepared her for organizing four people. Jack was the leader, the Captain. Roda had always worked alone, before him. But now, people imagined she could tell them what to do.

They had fallen into an uneasy rhythm, eventually. Roda, with Ianto's help, had picked up the slack of what Jack did behind the scenes, to make Torchwood work. She had moved properly into the Hub, as opposed to living in her TARDIS _parked_ in the Hub. She had swallowed her every hatred of organized politics and countries and touched base with the Prime Minister, and with UNIT. Gwen had volunteered to organize who worked when, having a better idea than Roda of when people needed to do things like eat and sleep and go to the dentist. Torchwood had returned to something approaching normal, and Roda had resisted the urge to hop in her TARDIS and find Jack. He would come back when he was done with... whatever he was doing. She had to believe that, or then what was the point in having learned to trust him at all?

And then the Master had shown up, and played them all like fiddles. Roda had been dealing with a loose end from a stray weevil at the university - slipping retcon into the mains water - when Ianto had called her. Said that Jack had called, that he needed them to come get him. He had been so elated, so happy, that it had taken Roda a minute to realise that it made no _sense_. Why would Jack contact them like that? Tell them to leave the Hub undefended? Why was everyone just leaping to do what he said, when most of the team was still angry at him? But she hadn't been able to convince him to wait for her, to think it through; and by the time she'd gotten back to the Hub - cursing herself for not taking her TARDIS - they had all been gone, without a trace. The Hub abandoned, like they had all fled a fire, with no time to grab anything. No equipment, no messages, not even the SUV missing. When the Hub had gone into lockdown just minutes after her return, she had wasted no time in heading for her TARDIS and leaving Cardiff behind.

She had seen the assassination on the news, keeping an eye on the 'right' time and place while she'd hunted for the team. Seen Saxon kill the American President, and heard from intergalactic news that Sol-3 was 'locked' and that ten percent of the population had been killed. And she had thrown herself into trying to find her team, _praying_ that they were alive. It had taken three days to find out where they'd gone - the Himalayas, of all places. Three days of jumping in and out of space, making sure that the Master couldn't track her TARDIS, looking for Torchwood while helping whatever humans whose path she crossed reach refugee camps. Three days of not sleeping (which was nothing, of course, to a Time Lord) and three days of devastation and loss and anger and _helplessness_. There was no way she could help everything, and if she stuck around too long, she knew that the Master would make the people she was helping pay. But by the time she found her friends, it had been too late. She’d stepped into the snow, heard the beeping, seen the little metal ball and realised that they’d been led into a trap; and so had she.

It had all happened so _fast._

She didn’t remember anything else after the avalanche. And now, here she was. Aching, limp and… with a horrible, sinking feeling in her stomach, she realised that the voice _was_ familiar.

“The cat’s me, of course,” continued the Master, in a playful, sing-song voice that seemed to come at Roda from a different direction at every syllable. “And you’re the bird, caught in my jaws…” Roda tried to push herself up, to roll onto her haunches, as something cold and very lethal pressed between her shoulder blades, “about to have their neck _snapped_.”

“Just kill me and be done with it.”

“Oh _Redjay_ ,” the Master crowed, his hand now on her neck, the weapon still at her back, “where would the fun be in _that_? After all last time we met, you left me,” his grip on her neck tightened until she was sure it would leave fingerprints, “ _hanging_.”

 _That was_ you, _you bastard…!_ At the mention of that memory, she very nearly lost it there and then.

“I wish I had,” she growled, pulling away and planting her hands on the ground.

But as she pushed up, making to rise into a jump away as her eyes began to adjust to the light, a heavy weight around her ankle yanked her down and back down to the metal grid of the floor beneath her. She swore, tugging at her leg with one aching hand on her thigh, but the metal cuff around her ankle was well and truly secure. It wasn’t coming off without a key, or a broken foot; one of which the Master would not give up lightly, and the latter she wasn’t quite ready to give herself. Especially if the Master seemed like he had some gloating to do before he killed her. Maybe she’d have enough time to live to work out some form of a plan...

“Ah, ah, ah.” The Master crouched down, one boot on her back as soon as she tried to rise again. This time Roda almost caught herself on her hands, but her nose took the brunt of the fall and she winced in pain. “We’re just catching up, wouldn’t want you running away on me _just_ yet.”

“Did you kill them?” Roda snapped, from the ground.

He was going to kill her - there was no doubt about _that_ \- but she had to know if it was him. If he had been the one to lure them out into danger, to Nepal. She couldn’t see them surviving the avalanche… but she had to _hope_. _If they're_ prisoners _here, not dead, I can still_ save _them. If he wants to play with his food first, at least._

“Kill who, dear Redjay?” The Master feigned ignorance, humming thoughtfully. “The Doctor? The freak? Ten percent of the world’s population - that one wasn’t me, it was _excellent_ pet-”

“My _team_.”

“ _Your_ team.” The Master laughed, easing up on Roda’s spine with both weapon and boot as it took him over. Roda turned to glare at him, getting onto her feet while she had the chance and patting herself down for a weapon that she was already sure wouldn’t be there. _Fingers still hurt,_ she noted, _can barely feel my own skin._ No quiver, no bow, no revolver, not even a knife. Someone had searched her down to the skin; the idea that it might have been the Master sent a chill down her spine. “Do you have _any_ idea how hard it was to keep a straight face, that first time you called me? _You_ , calling _me_ to play nice while the Freak was away. 'Course, he didn't find the story as funny as I did, when I told it to him.”

“The - _Jack_?” Roda asked, tilting her head to one side, weighing up how likely it was she’d be able to strangle the Master with the chain on her ankle before he could point his weapon at her again and pull the trigger. “What have you fucking _done_ to him?"

There was a short pause, and then the Master snorted.

“Well, you'll find out soon enough.” He sighed, pacing around her and rubbing his jaw. “Although, just as rude as you were before, I see.”

“Just as much of a basta-”

Even at the length of the chain, stumbling clumsily backwards, the Master had his weapon in the middle of Roda’s throat before she could finish her sentence. She tried to bat his arm away, hoping it would surprise him before he could fire, but the cold had dulled her reflexes and he grabbed hold of her wrist, twisting it down and causing her to move to avoid a worse injury. Her eyes watered in pain and she reflexively tried to kick out with her better leg before remembering the chain, and only the Master’s grip on her arm stopped her from losing her balance and tumbling once again to the ground.

The look of fury that flashed across the Master’s face swiftly passed as he saw the expression of pain and utter frustration on Roda’s. He cooed at her like someone trying to reassure a child with a paper cut, patting her cheek with - she strained to look down - the laser screwdriver he had held to her throat, gripping her chin between forefinger and thumb.

“I'd watch that language if I were you, Redjay. I might have to wash your mouth out with soap.” She scowled darkly at him, biting her tongue against her better judgement. The Master studied her, evidently waiting for her to rise to the bait once again before sighing dramatically and spinning away on the tip of one foot.

_Just as dramatic as always, then._

“ _However_ ,” continued the Master, “we _did_ find your little team, thanks to you." Her hearts went cold. "Unfortunately,” for a second, Roda dared to have a surge of hope, before she remembered who she was talking to, “they were dead on arrival. Terrible disasters, avalanches.” He pretended to pout. “So often too lethal,” his teeth flashed, “too quick.”

Roda’s hearts snapped, and she tried to keep the look of despair off her face. _At least_ he _didn’t kill them,_ she reminded herself, teeth clenching so hard that her jaw hurt. _He would make it far,_ far _more painful, if he had._ But it was little comfort. Jack had trusted her with his team - their team, her friends. Ianto, Tosh, Gwen, Owen… all of them were now dead. Gone, under her protection. She stared at the Master, searching his face for any sign that perhaps he was lying to her; trying to get her morale down, before he went in for the final blow. But he was too gleeful. She hadn’t seen him in hundreds of years, but he had had the same expression on his face when he had tried to kill her on Qualactin, and the countless other times their paths had crossed.

They were dead. Her legs wobbled. All _dead_ , each and every one of the Torchwood team, and she had failed to save them. And with all of Torchwood, herself included, dead or imprisoned on the Valiant, the refugees back on the planet would be all on their own. An iron fist clutched her chest, and for a moment her horror and guilt was almost enough to stop her breathing. Dead, abandoned - all because she had been able to do _nothing_. It was the Time War all over again and it was too soon by far.

The Master watched her face in turn, reading her facial expressions like a book. Roda had always worn her heart on her sleeve. She set her jaw, still strong enough to put up mental barriers before he could take advantage, and watched the side of his eye twitch, just noticeable. _So I’ve stopped him from doing_ one _thing to me. I’ll pay for that, I’m sure._

“How does it feel, Redjay? Just tell your _Master_ ,” he cooed, mockingly, “and I’ll make you feel all better.”

“Fuck you.”

She snatched her face out of his grasp, spitting on the ground in front of him. She had _aimed_ for his face.

“I gave you that chance,” he hissed, “on Qualactin. When I asked you to join me,” his eyes darkened, “and you betrayed me, disabled my TARDIS and called the Shadow Proclamation.”

“You were enslaving the population and stripping the planet dry of minerals!”

“As was my _right_ ,” he sneered, “as the Master.”

“Not _my_ Master.”

“Oh,” the Master’s eyes sparkled. “But I am. Because this,” he waved his arm around the room, “is _my_ cage and I don’t think you’re going anywhere, any time soon.” He beamed. “Not until _I_ say it’s so.”

Roda’s next words of High Gallifreyan were some of the least polite words in the universe. _Some of the oldest, too._ The Master paused for a moment, weighing them up, eyes betraying his thoughts as he worked out just exactly who, in his family line, Roda had just gravely insulted, and how harshly. And then he simply shook his head slowly, like a father about to scold a disobedient child, and had it not been him, had the situation not been so _dire_ , Roda might have pointed out how many hundred years older than him she was. But he was the Master and he was promising pain, and she had a terrible, horrible feeling that it was a promise he intended to keep tenfold before he would let her die.

All the same, as the back of his hand snapped her head to one side, her ears ringing and her cheek burning from the impact, he was calm. Collected. All of the joking around - if you could call it that - was gone as he lifted his laser screwdriver up to his eyes, fiddling with it in evident concentration. Roda tugged at her ankle again - _there has to be some kind of weakness, a way that I can break this lock. I’ll look at it when he’s_ gone - while keeping her eyes on the Master as he circled her like a bird of prey, or a hungry lion. He licked his lips, made a satisfied ‘huh!’ kind of noise and then pointed the laser at her languidly between the fingers of one hand.

“Very well, then. If you want to do this the hard way…”

The first blast of heat slashed her across the cheek before she could duck, slicing a thin, already cauterised welt where he had slapped her. Despite herself Roda yelped - not so much from the pain, but from the anticipation of what kind of setting he’d put his laser on - and pressed her hand to her cheek, grimacing at him and keeping her mouth shut with considerable ease. There were a _lot_ more words of High Gallifreyan she was very ready to say, but inviting more pain before she knew what his game was seemed like a bad idea. And besides; she’d taken his worst, before. She could probably handle it again.

“I have questions.”

“I’m sure you do,” Roda responded, as calmly as she could manage and dare. The Master narrowed his eyes, raising the screwdriver again with an evident ‘try me’ kind of expression. “But you’re not going to fucking get them from me.”

The second shot narrowly pissed her arm, Roda managing to move just in time to hear it ricochet off what sounded like a metal wall. The Master made a disappointed noise and shrugged.

“I don’t think you understand, Redjay. I ask the questions, and you answer them.”

“Over my dead body.”

“I told you,” the Master grinned, “I have no interest whatsoever in killing you… _yet._ ” He gave her a look like the cat who had the cream, and was getting ready to drink it as well.

“Take this cuff off my ankle,” Roda countered, bitterly. “And _then_ maybe we’ll talk.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll care much for my questions,” the Master countered, smirking. “So I think I like the extra security. And I don’t appreciate your hospitality. I only _ever_ told you the truth on Qualactin.”

“Bullshit.”

“And the more you struggle,” he pointed out innocently, completely ignoring her, “the more fun this is going to be for me.”

 _So he_ doesn’t _want me dead._ Roda realised, with a start. _There really_ is _something he wants. He might not have gotten Torchwood… but apparently I’m good enough. Well, he won’t get it._

“What do I even have that you want?” she snapped. “You have Earth, the Doctor, Jack. Your little metal toys-”

“Toclafane," he interjected.

Rauda couldn’t help but laugh. “Right. Toclafane. Bogeyman from Gallifrey - you _seriously_ called them that?”

“Ah, but the humans don’t know that. Besides, it doesn’t matter what I call them.” He beamed. “They still _kill_ on my command.”

“So what do you want from me that your stupid ‘toclafane’,” she couldn’t help but make air quotes around the word, despite the seriousness of the situation, “can’t get for you?”

“Well, yours and the Freak's team died before I could have _any_ fun,” said the Master casually. “Breaking _them_ was going to be my little Easter treat to myself. Or a performance for dear Lucy,” he wrinkled his nose, and then smiled again, sharp teeth showing. “But I have something better to play with now - you. And you have a _much_ better prize at the bottom of your cereal box.”

“Do your worst,” Roda snarled, her eyes narrowing. _Whatever the_ Skaro _you mean by that._

The Master raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and turned the laser on her once again. Ignoring the hand gesture she focused instead on throwing up every mental barrier that she had ever been taught how to build in the Academy, as well as a couple she had learned dealing with the Time Agency or practicing on her own. Telepathy had never been her strongest point, and she knew the Master’s was better; but that didn’t mean she was going to make the job easy for him, either. If he thought that he could get through to her by taking advantage of her frostbite and hurting her into slipping up, then she would surprise him by just much pain she had learned to handle over the years.

“I was hoping you would say that.”

The pain of losing Wick, of losing all of the team, of failing them, of losing Gallifrey, was still far keener than any physical injury she could imagine the Master would throw at her. She held onto that, though her hearts ached, for as long as she could, while the Master threw a hundred and one meaningless questions at her as he tried to trick her into missing the ones that he really cared about. Tiredness and recovering from the avalanche made her slow and clumsy and for every shot that she managed to dodge or deflect, every feint that she tried to throw the Master’s way as her eyes still struggled to adjust to the light of the Valiant’s artificial light, there was one that she didn’t. And at first, she managed not to scream.

At first.


	3. Rules and Reparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your Lord and Master stands on high... playing track six.” In which the Master teaches some prisoners a lesson or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Well, I'm not paralyzed  
>  But, I seem to be struck by you  
> I wanna make you move  
> Because you're standing still_   
>  **\-- Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer"**

_“Your Lord and Master stands on high... playing track six.”_

Roda came to with the taste of salt in her mouth and a fuzzy head, and for a moment couldn’t remember where she was. Loud music drowned out her thoughts like an alarm or a cloister bell, and she couldn’t help but groan.

Of the many, many things she had loathed about her solitary confinement on the Valiant, the Master’s taste in pop music had always been high on the list.

Forcing her eyes open - every instinct, every bone in her body screaming ‘danger’ since the day the Master had taken over Earth - Roda’s head snapped from side to side, taking her bearings. She wasn’t where she’d been before, and this wasn’t her tiny, dark cell where the Master left her alone with her own thoughts. It seemed more like a... almost like a _jeffrey_ _’s_ tunnel? Or the interior underside of a TARDIS, or an exhaust room. Somewhere metallic, almost but not quite alive. _Not a TARDIS, then. Machinery._ Condensation misted around here feet, and the tangy scent of oil and grease on the air was almost tangible. She could hear things chuttering around inside pipes, and from the faint vibration down her limbs she could only guess that she was somewhere in the underbelly of the ship. Her arms were held above her head, cuffed to opposite pipes and spread apart, but the chain around her ankle that had been chafing so badly was no longer there. _Still raw, though._ Her legs were free. Which begged the question... where had the escape plan gone _wrong_?

It hadn’t been her best plan, _that_ she had to admit, but she’d felt that it was a relatively solid one. It had taken the three weeks she’d been on the Valiant, a lot of smooth-talking and a little bit of morally dubious telepathy to set up; especially without allies to work with. She’d been hopeful - perhaps too hopeful. Every time that her and the Master’s paths had ever crossed, she’d been able to find a way out of the situation, but this one felt especially prickly. Not least of all, she mused, because the people who worked for him on the ship didn’t seem to want to be saved. Or rather, they didn’t _want_ to be there - but for a select few, thinking that they could ally themselves with power, who would find soon enough that they were making a terrible mistake - and they certainly didn’t want their planet to be overrun by the British Prime Minister and his spinning, spikey balls of death doom. But they were also too scared of him to try and do anything about it.

Ten years. Ten years the people of Qualactin had lived under his thumb, and she had managed to convince them to rise up and bring him down (even though a large part of the work had been calling the Shadow Proclamation on him and hobbling his TARDIS). But the people of Earth had given up hope, it seemed, in only a handful of weeks. She had always thought better of humans, heard all the stories of their heroics from the Doctor, and from Jack; and she knew that she was being unfair, all things considered. They had been through things, since the Master’s takeover, that many of them had never believed could ever happen outside of Hollywood, not to mention the sheer amount of people he had _killed_ since his arrival. And yet… she’d thought that she would have been able to convince someone to try and help her _finish_ it much quicker than she had.

Getting the key had been the easiest part. Even at her worst, Roda was a good pick-pocket, and it was child’s play to convince someone that they had merely forgotten that they had _already_ returned the key to her cell to the security office, not misplaced it. But it had been harder to convince someone to try and make a path for her, or to tip her off as to when it was best to try and break out. She had sworn up and down to every guard who had ever entered her cell - praying that they wouldn’t tell the Master, putting just enough psychic pressure on them to make sure that they wouldn’t - that she could take him down, and that she had done it before. That she could fight him, beat him, get to the Doctor, to Jack, do _something_. That she was more help to them on the outside of a cell than the inside of them. But only one of them had been willing to help her to escape, and she had a horrible feeling that he wouldn’t be helping anybody else, anymore.

She’d not gotten far. The ship was just too much of a maze, and swarming with toclafane. Roda didn’t even remember what had gotten her, in the end; a guard, or one of them. She’d hit her head, that she remembered. And the fear of knowing that she’d _failed_ , and would pay the price. That fear threatened to overwhelm her as she struggled anew to get out of the bonds she was in.

Squirming and writhing and feeling like a worm on a hook, it took Roda a few seconds to spot Jack, similarly strung up, with a mixed look of horror, anger and concern plain on his face. Roda tried to smile at him - tried to tell him that she was alive, she was okay - but she knew that it didn’t matter. It was platitudes. The two of them knew death intimately, and knew when the situation was about as dire as it could be. _And I_ _’ve probably just made it worse by doing something very,_ colossally, _stupid._ Roda knew, too, that they were both at the mercy of the Master’s cruel whims. Her feeble attempt at a grin faltered, and she let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding in. If she and Jack were here, bound together, she had no doubt that the Master wouldn’t be far behind. But for now, they were alone.

“ _Jack_...” Roda said, quietly, trying to put a confidence into her voice that she hardly felt. She could hardly hear herself over the music, and strained to raise her voice. “Come here often?”

Her friend chuckled, but Roda could tell it was forced. Any relief he had at seeing her alive and... well, not quite well but relatively unharmed was almost impossible to hold onto. _He_ _’ll be angry,_ said an irrational voice at the back of her mind _, if he learns why I_ _’m here. That I failed._ But the voice was easily silenced by reason, and concern. That wasn’t Jack. He wouldn’t be angry at _her._

“Y’know how it is,” he shrugged, managing one of his cheeky grins. Roda almost smiled back. “You don’t specify a safeword before you begin and next thing you know, you’re chained to a pipe.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“More than you’d think,” he smirked, and then sighed. “ _Fuck_ , though... am I happy to see you.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Roda snorted. “But I’m not so sure.”

Jack barked a laugh. “S’fair.” He hesitated, and for a brief moment Roda saw hope cross his eyes that she steeled herself to have to shoot down. “The others...? Ianto?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. The Master tricked them," she decided not to tell Jack how the Master had used him to lure his friends to their death. "I couldn't get there fast enough, they were already-“

“I know,” said Jack darkly, his jaw set. “I... I get it.” He looked right into Roda’s eyes, his own damp with held-back tears. “Roda, you know it’s _not_ your fault...”

“I should have-!”

“Roda, listen to me. The Master, he’s insane.”

“I know!” she interrupted, pale-faced. “I tried to get out - tried to escape, to reach you all, to do _something_ -!”

She had to say so, out of guilt, if nothing else. But Jack shook his head, unwilling or unable to hear it. “You have _no_ idea,” Jack’s mouth grimaced into a snarl, and his eyes narrowed “no idea the kind of things he’s capable o-!”

Despite herself, Roda screamed as a bullet caught Jack between the eyes before he could finish talking. For a moment, sheer shock took over as she could only stare, straining and kicking against her restraints to try and reach him. And then she remembered that he didn’t die, couldn’t die. It was only temporary. He wasn’t dead, wasn’t dead, wasn’t dead… but the faces of the rest of his team, cold and frozen and abandoned and broken flooded her mind, and it was hard to tell herself that Jack wasn’t about to end up the same way. To remind herself that one day, no matter how long it took, they and the rest of the world were going to make it out of this ship _alive._

 _One day,_ she told herself, tears filling her eyes all the same. _Just not today._

“I’m hurt, Redjay. Didn’t you warn the Freak about me? Doesn’t he know you _know_ the things I’m capable of...?”

The Master’s voice behind her as he gripped her head and forced her to look at Jack’s body was almost as much of a shock as the bullet that had whizzed past her head. She couldn’t take her eyes off Jack as the bleeding wound began to close up - head wounds bled so much, it always surprised her - and the bullet was pushed out, clattering and clanking to the ground as Jack came back to life with a gasp. Her vision was blurry with tears of alarm, pain, frustration. For a moment, she couldn’t even summon the words to respond to the Master in any way; a hesitation that he grabbed hold of with delight, letting go of her head to clap his hands with glee as he half-skipped, half-danced into the space between the two friends with a gesture that under any other circumstances, might have come with a ‘ta-da!’

Even then, it more or less did. Just… silently. It went without saying.

“You have the Redjay to blame for _that_ ,” he informed Jack, excitedly, tapping his foot on the ground in time to the inane pop music. He raised the gun once again, aiming it for somewhere less fatal but more painful. “Why don’t you say thank you, there’s a good Freak.”

Jack narrowed his eyes, saying nothing at all. He lifted his chin, even as blood still dried on his face, even as Roda could see his chest heaving with pain and shock. His face was immaculate. Ever the soldier, ever the Captain. She didn’t know how he did it. But it wasn’t enough for the Master. She saw the other Time Lord tense up, his foot missing the beat for just a second, before he gave a perfectly casual shrug, turned on one foot and pulled the trigger.

“Well, your loss.”

Roda grit her teeth as she felt the bullet slice through her shoulder, narrowly missing bone. With a faint keening noise - _Rassilon, but it_ _’s been a long time since I’ve been shot with a gun -_ she did her best to keep her breathing under control as the Master twirled the clip of the gun with a click-click-click, hardly paying either of his agonized prisoners a moment of attention. She tried to figure out his game, to work out why _Jack_ was here, if this was all about her escape. What was the _point_? _Was_ there a point?

“Now,” said the Master, continuing to pace between the two of them, still playing with the gun like it was little more than a toy, and not something he’d just shot two people with in quick succession. “Our friendly neighbourhood _vigilante_ here,” he jerked his chin in Roda’s direction without looking at her, “has been _very_ naughty today.” He looked up at Jack, tilting his head to his side, and Roda tried to get a look at his expression. “Bribed a guard, stole a key…” He tsked. “Even rooted around a couple of poor, defenceless humans’ minds to cover her tracks. Not that it _did_ her any good, of course.”

Jack’s expression remained neutral, his jaw tight.

“What?” asked the Master. “No comment? No fury?” He paused thoughtfully, and then aimed the gun at Roda without even looking at where he might be shooting her. Roda’s eyes widened in shock as she tried to figure out the angle the bullet would come at her from, how likely it was to hit her in one of her hearts if he just carelessly pulled the trigger. “I can shoot her again, if that would help?” He cooed at Jack. “Do you need your cue? The line is ‘no, Master, please, I’m _begging_ you, hurt me instead!’”

Roda growled in the back of her throat as the penny dropped. He was punishing _her_ by punishing _Jack._ Shooting him, making him choose and hurting them both in the process. Using them against each other. She was amazed that she hadn’t worked it out before, but there’d never been anyone else in danger from the Master because of her, before. It was one thing, she realised with horror, for him to turn his anger and his cruelty on her; quite another for it to happen when there were people that she loved in the room. People that the Master could kill over and over and over again, with a smile on his rictus face. _And there_ _’s nothing I can do about it with my hands bound. I just have to watch._

But the growl didn’t go unnoticed. The Master lowered the gun for just a second, holding up his free hand as he slowly turned to face Roda. This time he walked right over to her, no discipline for the trigger whatsoever, still moving to the tune of the _stupid_ song. He hummed along for a little bit as he sized her up, looking up and down at the bruise on her face that the toclafane had caused, and the blossom of red flowering out on her shoulder. And then he pursed his lips, giving her an impatient, lecturing look.

“Let me explain it to you in _small words_ , Redjay.” Roda spat at him, but he just casually wiped the mess off his cheek and dried it on her trouser leg, shaking his head as though he was _very_ disappointed in her. “I had an idea after your little stunt.” Like whiplash he spun around, shooting Jack in the thigh and dragging out a howl of pain as the man began to slowly bleed out across the room. Roda shouted out in anger, fury, _wordless_ High Gallifreyan as the Master turned back to her, sighing. “Don’t you get it yet? You. Are. _Mine_.” He grabbed the collar of her shirt, tugging her towards him until her arms strained against the restraints and it felt to Roda as though her injured shoulder - already beginning to slowly regenerate - would be pulled out of its socket. “You lost, Redjay. I _won_. There’s no Doctor, no Freak, no Vegans here to save you this time. No Shadow Proclamation. But that’s not what hurts you the most, is it?”

Roda narrowed her eyes. “Get your hands _off_ me…”

The Master shook his head. “Do you _really_ want me to shoot the Freak again?” Roda froze. “Because that’s how I’ve decided to keep the two of you in _line_ from now on. If _he_ breaks the rules…” The Master pulled the trigger again, putting a bullet through the palm of Roda’s hand. It would heal, but _Rassilon_ , did it hurt. Roda scrunched up her eyes as she struggled not to make a sound, hand contorting into a quivering claw. “You hurt. And if _you_ break the rules…”

“No!” Roda shouted. But it was too late, and the wrong thing to say. Despite her scream of frustration, the Master shot Jack once again in the leg, dragging another agonized shout from the immortal.

“You break the _rules_ ,” the Master repeated, looking at Roda with a manic, vicious scowl, “and I make the Freak dance. Do you understand, Redjay?” Roda said nothing, and the Master casually checked how many rounds were left in his gun. “I said _, do you understand?_ Believe me, shooting him again is the _least_ I could d-”

“I understand!” Roda shouted, pulling on the restraints despite the pain in her hand and arm, the blood dripping on the floor. Despite every measure of her pride screaming at her to shut up, her conscience won out. “You _bastard_ , I get it! Leave him alone!”

“I’m sorry,” the Master asked sweetly, “what was that?”

Roda’s eyes darted back and forth as her anger boiled, but the answer came to her quick enough.

“ _Please_ ,” she begged, eyes wide, all of her will needed to keep from swearing.

“Please…?”

She took a sharp, angry breath and then repeated herself. “Please… _Master._ _”_

“Ah,” the Master clapped his hands again, bringing his fingers to his lips and blowing a chef’s kiss to the air, even with the muzzle of the gun. “Sweet _music_ to my ears.”

As Jack grunted in pain, blood draining through the metal grates, Roda realised that she had never, in all of her years, hated the Master more than she did at this very moment. It was one thing to beat her, subjugate her, humiliate her; another thing entirely to watch him do it to her friends, just because he _could._ Just because he knew how to get under her skin, for all that she had tried not to let him weasel in. She wished that she had escaped, or that she’d been able to break Jack out instead, or that she hadn’t let Ianto and Gwen and Tosh and Owen down in the first place and that nobody was dead, because of her. Not now, not so close to the War, not after she had already lost so much. Let down so many people. She wished that she wasn’t here, that Jack was fine. That the Doctor was on the outside, doing his hero thing. She wished that the Master would just kill Jack outright, so that his pain would _stop_ , instead of tormenting her by tormenting _him._

She wished - though the realisation scared her more than anything else - that she could snap the Master’s neck and end all of this right here, right now.

The sound of the Master snapping his fingers in front of her face jarred Roda from her thoughts and the introversion of pain and guilt. She blinked a few times, shaking her head, lifting her chin from her chest to give the Master a look that she hoped promised everything that she didn’t want to say. Not when his little tit for tat game was so fresh in his mind.

“Hel- _lo_ -oh?” He waved his hand in front of her face again, voice all sing-song. “Earth to Rodageitmososa?” She flinched, hearing her full name yet another slap to the face, and the Master put his hand to his chest, feigning a relieved sigh. “Oh thank goodness; I thought I’d broken you _already_.”

“I don’t break easily…” mumbled Roda, half to herself.

She was beginning to get dizzy. The wounds he’d inflicted would heal - and from the look of Jack, he’d just about passed out from blood loss already, which meant he’d come back to life soon - but she’d still lost a lot of blood, for the circumstances. And then there was the head wound. The only thing keeping her from passing out herself was the sheer rush of adrenaline coursing through her body, and pure spite.

“Oh _yes_ ,” the Master’s face broke into a Cheshire grin. “In fact, I was counting on that.”

The bullet that ended Jack’s life by slicing through his throat ricocheted off the wall behind him, ringing in their ears. The Master winced at the sound, and Roda bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, and said nothing. Noticing it, the Master reached up and gently wiped the blood away with his thumb, licking it up with a twinkle in his eyes as he leaned in close to Roda and slipped the gun into his belt.

“That one was for good behaviour.” Roda’s eyes narrowed in anger and confusion, and the Master chuckled. “Would you rather I _hadn_ _’t_ put him out of his misery?”

“Why are you doing this…?” asked Roda, exhaustion tinging her voice. The edges of her vision were going dark, and she could hear the resignation in her voice. “What’s the point?”

“Oh Redjay,” whistled the Master. “I have plans upon plans upon _plans_. Why _shouldn_ _’t_ I indulge myself with a little petty revenge and torture while I wait for them to play out?” He paused, but before Roda could think of an answer, he shook his head and threw his hands up in the air. “Would you look at - _honestly_!” He sighed. “You made me miss my song.” The side of his mouth twitched into a pout. “And I don’t even think you were paying attention to it.”

Drawing his laser screwdriver from his pocket, he played about with the settings and then pointed it at a speaker mounted in the corner. The music stopped with a click and a lurch as Jack heaved himself back to life, sweat-soaked and saturated with his own blood. Roda was about to call out to him, check on him, say _something_ but the Master put his hand over her mouth with an ‘ah ah ah!’ and then whispered conspiratorially.

“I don’t know if you’re heard this one before,” he confided in her, as the same song began to play again. “But I chose it _especially_.”

Roda let her head drop to her chest once again as the Master began to tap his toes to the beat of the [opening guitars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NlW4PZ8NHI) once again, singing and dancing along like the whole world was watching.


	4. She Carries Guilt on Her Shoulders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once, Tish had asked the Doctor who she was. The Redjay. The conversation had stuck with her.

“Oh my _god_ …!”

As the door to the Redjay’s cell slid open, Tish Jones dropped the tray of food she’d been carrying and clapped her hands to her face in horror.

She’d never really met the Redjay before. Their paths hadn’t crossed, even though they were both trapped on the fucking ship. The Master liked to keep them close to hand, waiting on him hand on foot, where he could keep an eye on them. They had rooms to sleep in, _uniforms,_ an ever-looming threat that if they put a foot out of line, then the Master would do everything in his power to make sure that Martha would pay for it. But they had it easy, Tish knew; easy compared to the Doctor, and especially compared to Jack and to the Redjay. Because when the Master came back to his rooms and summoned one of them and his hands were covered in blood, they knew that he’d been to see one of his _other_ prisoners. And so Tish had kept her mouth shut, and done as she was told, and prayed every night that the nightmare would end.

Once, she had asked the Doctor who she was. The Redjay. The conversation had stuck with her.

> _“She’s like… us. The Master and I. But older._ Much _older._ _”_
> 
> _Tish wrinkled her nose. She_ _’d had_ enough _of aliens, this year. Enough of ancient beings bringing ruin to the world, taking her sister from her, letting their wars destroy everything she knew. Her mum tried to pull her away, hissing that she should leave the Doctor alone, in case_ he _saw her talking to her. But Tish had to know_ more. _She had to know why the Master was always in such a good mood after he_ _’d tortured the Redjay._
> 
> _"Then why doesn’t she_ leave _? If she_ _’s so powerful.”_
> 
> _The Doctor sighed._ _“Because she won’t leave while_ we’re _suffering._ _” Tish frowned, uncomfortable. “Because even if she_ could _get away, she_ _’s too stubborn.”_
> 
> _“Why does she care about_ us _, though? Why does the Master hate her?_ _”_
> 
> _“Because he’s so far gone,” said the Doctor, sadly. It hadn’t felt right to Tish, but the Master would be back soon, and she was running out of time to push him. “Because she’s got in his way_ before _._ _”_
> 
> _“But-”_
> 
> _“_ Tish _…!” her mum had insisted, tugging at her arm, desperation in her eyes. She jerked her head at the door, at the sound of music coming down the corridor. “He’s almost_ here _…!”_
> 
> _"_ _She carries guilt on her shoulders,” said the Doctor, finally, closing his eyes and settling back into his tent. “And she thinks that if someone else is hurting, it’s_ her _job to suffer instead._ _”_

And so she’d thought kindly of the Redjay, even though she hated aliens, hated the Doctor for failing; hated the Master for what he had done to the world, to her family; hated the toclafane for just _being_. But their paths had never crossed. It was the Master’s guards who brought the Redjay food - especially after that time that she’d tried to escape - and it was almost as if the Master thought that if she saw a friendly face, then she’d try it again. Or maybe, like the Doctor had said, she was trying to distract him. Keep his cruelty focused on her, and spare the rest of them. Jack asked about her almost as much as he did the Doctor, but Tish had never been able to give him anymore reassurance than she ever could. The only one in their family who’d ever met the Redjay before was her mum, and she didn’t like to talk about it.

She’d come back covered in blood that day, too - none of it hers.

And so when the Master had handed Tish a plate of cold food, slapped her on the arse and sent her off to the Redjay’s cell, she hadn’t known _what_ to expect. At first, she’d wondered if _she_ was in trouble; tried to rack her mind to think about what she could have done wrong. Wondered if this was it, if she was going to die. But as she’d navigated the winding labyrinth of corridors, flanked by guards, she’d come to the conclusion that if the Master wanted her dead, he’d do it himself. He’d not send her off on a wild goose chase. And he’d stayed behind with his wife, demanding that mum get him some tea and biscuits and laughing about some meeting he was supposed to be having with someone or other but how the Redjay had given him a _much_ better idea of what to do with his time. The thought made Tish feel sick, not to mention the fear of what she was going to see. She’d had no idea what to expect… but she hadn’t expected a _body._

The doors slid shut behind her with a pneumatic hiss as Tish rushed across the room despite herself, trying to remember _anything_ that Martha had ever told her about first aid. She muttered out loud to herself as she did so, knees hitting the ground as she frantically grabbed the prone form, trying desperately to work out how to undo the belt buckle that was fastened tight around her neck. When her hand came away from the Redjay’s back sticky with blood, she tried to ignore it instead of throwing up.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” She grabbed the end of the rope, trying to work her fingers underneath the leather, trying to tell if there was a pulse. She couldn’t. Unsure if she was looking in the wrong place, or making a mistake, or that there _wasn_ _’t_ one - was this why the Master had sent her? To scare her? - she frantically pressed her hand against the Redjay’s chest, praying that she would hear them beating. It was faint, and shallow, but she let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding in as she felt the woman’s breasts rise and fall. “Oh thank _Christ_ , she’s not - _shit_!” Tish swore, yanking her hands away and returning her attention to the makeshift leather noose, fumbling to undo the buckle with fingers that were slick with blood. “Shit, what if she - she has to breathe - what if I shouldn’t have _moved_ her, what if I-”

As the Redjay began to cough and wheeze, Tish couldn’t help but scream in alarm. She saw the woman’s hands strain and twitch, bound tightly behind her back, but as she tried to do something about _that_ she realised they were secured with something much sturdier than a belt. She threw the belt as far across the room as she could manage, trying to rest her hand between the Redjay’s shoulders and rub them soothingly as she fumbled for the right words to say and felt she was falling utterly flat.

“It’s okay…!” she said, pathetically, knowing it was a lie and feeling as though she had to say it anyway. She must have touched something that hurt because the Redjay gave a sharp yelp, still panting as she tried to catch her breath. _But thank god she_ _’s alive. She’s not dead. I’m not - I’m not holding a body._ “It’s going to be - well, it’s _not_ going to be okay,” Tish stammered as she continued, aware that she was talking too much, “but he’s not here - and you’re breathing - and - and I’ve got some - _Christ_ I dropped your dinner, but I’ll get you some water or - or something and-!”

“No…” The Redjay croaked, trying to shake her head and hardly finding the energy. “I’m - you don’t… no.”

“Here…” whispered Tish, her voice barely more than a breath. Aware that no matter how she tried to move the Redjay it was going to hurt, she ignored the fact that she couldn’t unlock the cuffs on her wrists for now and tried to help her sit up. The woman was small, light - Tish had all but felt her ribs, through the tattered remains of her shirt - and she tried not to touch the criss-cross of fresh lacerations on her back as she eased her half-protesting into a sitting position, and sat her gently against the nearest wall. “Just… just breathe, okay. In, out, slow and steady yeah? My sister’s a - a nurse, she’s going to be a doctor. I know a - a _little_ first aid.”

The Redjay made a choking noise that might have been a laugh or a snort. As her back hit the wall she hissed, clenching her eyes shut, and then said something under her breath in a language that Tish couldn’t understand. She flinched away from the contact, and knowing that it would turn her stomach, Tish risked a glance at the woman’s back. What she saw almost turned her stomach.

She’d - she must have been _whipped_. But the Master had definitely not held back. The Redjay’s shirt - already dirty and worn - was torn to shreds from top to bottom, only really hanging on her by the arms. Through the tattered fabric, Tish couldn’t even begin to _count_ how many times he must have stuck her; it was too much of a bloody mess to make out the lines. She turned away, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth and swallowing, hard. The Redjay’s forehead was soaked with sweat, and there were bloody handprints on her legs - probably from where Tish had first grabbed her - and she looked as though she was about to fall apart at the seams at any moment. Tish glanced at the discarded belt, and wondered with horror if the Master had choked her with the very tool he’d used to hurt her. _It would be just like him,_ she thought, bitterly, utterly out of her depth. _I wish I hadn_ _’t had to see this. I wish this year hadn’t happened._ The Doctor’s and the Master’s words ran through her mind again; who had the Redjay taken this beating for?

“ _Why_?” It took half a minute for the Redjay to open her eyes, and fix Tosh with a barely-focused look of confusion. She blinked, head tilting to one side. “Why didn’t you fight _back_?”

“Not…” She coughed, resting her head against the wall, clearly wanting her neck to be free. Tish could see horrid bruising already coming to the surface, the stitching of the belt indented in the skin. Once she had caught her breath, the Redjay spoke again. “Nottingham…” She spoke in that strange language again, spitting at the ground, clearly angry despite her exhaustion and pain. “Damn… hurts.”

Tish looked her over, trying not to let herself put two and two together and draw the wrong conclusion. Why had the Master threatened _Nottingham_? Had she said Nottingham, or was it another language, something else entirely? And if she had… Tish’s eyes widened. Was that where Martha was? Had the Master found her? Had the Redjay known?

“What do you need?” she asked, instead, watching the Redjay try and fail to pull herself up, gnawing at her lip anxiously. She glanced towards the door. “Just - wait here.”

She hammered on the door with one fist, not knowing if she expected the guards to even answer. After a short pause the door hissed open and a guard glanced in, looking at Tish with the same dead-eyed look that made her wonder if the Master had them brainwashed, or something. Tish took a deep breath. “I need some water.”

“What for?”

Tish tried not to make a fist, and tried to stay brave. “The Master wanted me to give her food and water,” she lied, voice as steady as she could manage. “Do _you_ want to tell him you didn’t let me do that?”

“Then you should _have_ water.”

“I forgot it,” explained Tish, hurriedly. She gave the man a small, apologetic smile. “I - I was scared. Of the prisoner.”

The door shut again, and Tish could hear the two guards talking among themselves, followed by the sound of retreating footsteps. She glanced over at the Redjay - who seemed to have decided that _not_ moving was her best course of action - and wondered if her bluff had paid off. They might return with water, or they might return with the Master… or they might not return at all. Tish swallowed, leaning against the wall and pinching the bridge of her nose, trying to get her own heartbeat under control. She’d never imagined that she’d have to do anything like this… had never expected to have to care for someone who was in so much pain because their mutual _captor_ had whipped them within an inch of their life for what - fun? Because the Redjay had offered herself up as sacrifice?

 _Why Nottingham?_ kept coming back to Tish, as she shook her head. _What_ _’s so important about Nottingham?_

It was nearly ten minutes before the door opened again, and a bottle of water was held out to her. Tish breathed a sigh of relief, trying to look grateful as the door shut again, hurrying across the room to where the Redjay was slouched. The other woman opened an eye as Tish approached her, and Tish couldn’t shake the feeling that she looked a little like a dog who’d been kicked one too many times. _She doesn_ _’t trust me,_ she realised, devastated. _But can I blame her?_ As she walked, she dug around in the pocket of her dress for the little packet of pills she’d squirreled away for herself, popping two out of the blister pack and into her palm as she crouched down in front of the Redjay and broke the seal on the bottle of water. She sniffed it once - half expecting that the Master might have poisoned it - and then decided that she’d have to take the risk. _I can_ _’t make the wounds go away, but I can help the_ pain.

“Here,” she said, gently taking the Redjay’s chin in her hand, popping the painkillers into her mouth and tilting the bottle back so that the half-awake Redjay could drink greedily. “This’ll help the pain. I mean,” she pulled a face as the Redjay kept on drinking, and she tried to make sure the woman wouldn’t choke more. “I don’t know how _much_ they’ll help; they’re for my period. Mum managed to get them from Mrs Saxon for me…”

When the Redjay was done drinking, Tish sat with her for as long as she could. There was nothing else to say. ‘Thank you’ seemed weak, and the Redjay clearly wasn’t up to any sort of conversation. But Tish didn’t want to leave her alone, not when she looked as bad as she did. With the Redjay’s permission, she tried to clean some of the lacerations with shreds of her shirt and what was left of the water, but she hardly knew what she was doing, and each time she touched her the Redjay tensed up, mumbling to herself, and Tish felt as though she was only making it worse. But the bleeding was starting to still, at least, and the Redjay didn’t push her away. She couldn’t get the cuffs on her wrists open, but she held one of the Redjay’s hands in her own, wondering if it was any comfort to _her_ but knowing that doing _something_ was a comfort to herself, at least. It made her feel better to think that she wasn’t entirely helpless. She stroked her thumb around the Redjay’s palm, her knee touching hers, and she told her that Jack was okay - because she remembered hearing that the two were friends - and that the Doctor was alive, and that Martha was still free.

And if the Redjay had nodded off into an uneasy sleep before Tish was told that she had to leave, then at least she’d get some rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has a part two, coming - different title.


	5. Enough 1/2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set immediately after "She Carries Guilt on Her Shoulders". Roda realises that something is very, very wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"If I could grant you peace of mind... would that be enough?"_   
>  **\-- Hamilton, "Non-Stop"**

When Roda next woke up, curled up in an agonizing ball of pain on the floor of her cell, she knew that something new was very, _very_ wrong.

Her ears were ringing. At first, she thought it was just from lying down on the metal grating for too long, or that she’d bumped her head when the Master had been lashing her. But it was _insistent._ It was a constant, metallic sound at the back of her mind, like white noise, drowning out all of her thoughts and making it almost impossible to focus on where she was or what she was feeling or why she was feeling it. And her ears _ached_ , as though somebody had taken their palms and slapped down hard on the side of her head, jostling her ear drums, or screamed really loudly right beside her. Eyes narrowed against the pain and the nausea she did her best to roll onto front and then onto her knees as she tried to use the wall to pull herself to her feet. But she was dizzy, _oh_ so dizzy, and she only managed to take a couple of steps towards the door - in pursuit of what, she wasn’t sure - before he knees buckled once more and she hit the deck with a thud.

She was aware that her back should have hurt more, from the fall, but the ringing was taking up all of her attention. The ringing and the fact that the more she strained to hear the sound of the engine, or of guards pacing outside, or the whistle of pneumatic pipes that she gotten used to, the more she realised that she couldn’t hear _any_ of them. And it was more than just tiredness. She was a Time Lady, even when the Master beat her to the ground, even when it felt as though her body was on fire and that she was about to throw up at any moment. Her senses were so much better than any of the humans’ on the Valiant; enough so that she’d had to put real _effort_ into drowning out the noise of the ship in order to get any rest at all. But now she practically felt deaf. She could still see fine, though she was squinting, and she could taste salt where she’d bit her tongue and the inside of her cheek, and her sense of time was as well attuned as always, despite the fact that she scarcely remembered the last time that she’d seen daylight… and so something was affecting her hearing, and she didn’t know _what_.

It hadn’t been the Master, unless he’d done something to her while she was sleeping; something that she wouldn’t have put past him, except that she’d woken up more or less where she remembered one of the Jones’ leaving her, and somebody had removed the belt from around her throat. _He_ _’d have put it back on, or hung me up from the wall, just to torment me._ Not the cuffs, though. Not without his biosignature. She closed her eyes again, trying to ground herself with the cold metal against her face, wishing that she hadn’t tried to _think._ Thinking hurt. Thinking was too loud, like her words were echoing inside of her head, unable to get out. But it didn’t make sense, and she didn’t _like_ not knowing what was going on. Not when she was in enemy territory. She licked her lips, and tried to steady her heavy, racing breathing, and tried to remember anything _important._

There was the taste of something else in her mouth, something that she didn’t recognize. Like nothing that she’d tasted before. She tried to remember what had happened when the Master had sent the girl in, what she’d done for her apart from taking the belt off. Vaguely, she recalled being spoken to, being told something about her family, about… Martha? Had it been Martha’s sister? She remembered the girl going over to the door, and getting the guards to bring her something, and she remembered being given a drink that had felt like some sort of gift from whatever passed for heaven, when you were a Time Lord. Cool, refreshing, sterile water, easing her throat - raw from shouting and swearing and grunting - and cooling down her body as it flared with a fever from being hit over and over and over again with the Master’s belt until she scarcely felt as though she had any blood left in her. Pain. Pain was very clear in her mind, and she remembered _why_ she had done it. A bargain, struck with a bastard that she could hardly even trust to keep it.

> _“Do what you like to me,” she begged, as the Master undid his belt, walking towards her. “Just leave them_ be. _I_ _’ll do whatever you want!”_
> 
> _He grabbed her by the jaw, studying her face, her intensity, her honesty. On her knees, looking up at him, desperation in her eyes._ Right where he wants me. _“One little city means so much to you?”_
> 
> _It was petty, and selfish, and wrong. As if she should give herself up for one set of humans over any other set of them. But she couldn_ _’t lie._
> 
> _“Yes.”_
> 
> _He had the isometric cuffs off her in a snap as he gestured at the metal pipe in front of her coldly._
> 
> _“Hands on the pipe,” said the Master, letting go of her and walking away. Roda stared, aware that she could run at any moment. That there were no bindings on her, no guards, and an open door. Instead she pulled herself to her feet and turned her back on the Master, gripping the pipe in both hands and closing her eyes. “Let go even_ once _, and I will raze Nottingham to the ground._ _”_

She hoped he had kept her promise. _She_ hadn’t let go, even when he had missed her back, even when her mind threatened to leave her. But that alone wouldn’t be enough to make her feel so sick. Although she’d lost a lot of blood, she knew that she’d lost more before; when he shot her, and during her first regeneration. And blood loss wasn’t enough to make her feel like she’d swallowed...

Her eyes widened and Roda swore as the horrible realisation sunk in like a knife to the gut. _Poison. I_ _’ve been poisoned._ She licked her lips again, trying to work out what the taste was, what she didn’t recognize. _Nothing like what the Time Agent used in the Peninsula, anyway._ It was chalky, bitter, acidic. It hadn’t been in the water - she’d have tasted it - but then she remembered that the girl had fed something else to her, when she’d still been coming to her senses. Some kind of… pill? Something for her periods? Something for pain? Roda racked her memory for anything she could remember about twenty first century first aid, hoping against hope that she hadn’t been given the one thing that the anti-toxins in her DNA wouldn’t easily be able to handle. But there was the memory, just at the back of her mind, of Gwen complaining about a migraine and taking a couple of something mixed with aspirin to dull the pain.

Roda groaned. How long had she slept? How bad was it? She longed to try and throw the pills up, to get them out of her system, but her mouth was too dry and all of her attempts resulted in nothing more than more pain in her throat, and more flashes of fever and pain. Dizzy and confused, and managed to get herself to her feet once again but swayed where she stood, unable to even use her arms to balance herself because of the fucking cuffs. _At least I_ _’m not chained to the floor. At least I’m not going to die chained like a dog._ As soon as she was relatively certain she wasn’t going to fall immediately back down again she started to make for the door, not quite sure what it was that she planned to do. Shout for help? Alert a guard? She couldn’t think. But putting one foot in front of the other while her ears rung and her mind did circus tricks proved harder than she expected, and by the time she managed to thud against the locked door she scarcely remembered what she’d gotten there for. _Why am I_ _… did I…_

A sharp outtake of breath - frustration and anger - turned gold in front of her face, and her eyes widened in alarm. With renewed vigor - _I won_ _’t die here, I won’t die here because of a_ mistake _-_ Roda put all of her weight into beating her shoulder against the heavy metal door again and again, hoping that at the very least, someone would come in to shut her up and realise that she could hardly stand. _Want to make sure their Master_ _’s fucking_ toy _doesn_ _’t die on them, maybe._ Her breathing was erratic and her eyes wild, and she pounded and pounded on the door for what felt like hours but nobody came. Nobody listened. Nobody helped her. As her legs gave way and she slumped to the ground again, knowing that she’d started half of the lashes on her back and shoulders bleeding all over again, she made one last ditch attempt not to die - fueled by little more than instinct and confusion - as she let down her mental barriers and sought out a familiar mind.

Any mind.

Nothing happened. Nobody came. For the first time since her first regeneration Roda felt completely helpless, totally… alone. _Could_ she regenerate, from this? Or would the poison - already making her hearts race - stop her breathing before the energy could kick in? Should she trigger a regeneration? She scarcely knew how, had never been suicidal before. It was something she could do - she remembering being told how, at the Academy, by lecturers who expected Time Lords to change their faces when they were ready, as was good and proper, and not because they were dying - but _how_? Already her brain felt like slush, and it kept coming back to her that nobody was coming. If she couldn’t figure out what to do, if her own biology couldn’t step in and save her, then she was going to slip away without anyone here with her. Even the Master as witness was better than _that_.

Weakly she rifled through the human minds on the ship once again, trying to latch on to somebody who could hear her. Understand her. But she was too tired and not strong enough, and she felt like the biggest fool in all of Mutter’s Spiral. She forced open her eyes and stared at the ceiling and wondered - _have I done enough?_

« _If I die,_ » she said, to nobody in particular, scarcely aware she was thinking ‘out loud’, « _will that be enough?_ »


	6. Enough 2/2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I'm inclined to believe, if we were so down... we'd up and leave._   
>  **\-- Robin Hood, "Not in Nottingham"**

The Master woke up in the middle of the night, pulled on a pair of trousers, and hit the ground running.

It was instinct alone, pure and simple. He had been sound asleep when he heard the psychic presence touch his (such a novelty, sleep, but a human habit he was almost growing to enjoy) but it had been enough to jolt him from his rest. Not enough, though, to give him some idea of why he was moving. All he’d thought, as he begun to move, was that a Time Lord had let down their guard and that they were hurting, and perhaps he had gone too far with the Doctor. It had been a familiar mind; it had to be his. And so he headed there, a scowl forming, trying to convince himself that he didn’t _care_ that the Doctor was in pain. He just wanted to be there to see it.

The doors to the room the Doctor was kept in, overnight, couldn’t have opened fast enough. He slammed his fist into the wall, cursing it to move, and squeezed through the gap before it was even done. But as his eyes latched immediately onto the sight of the decrepit old Doctor, so old and trying to pull himself into his wheelchair, he realised his mistake immediately.

He spoke at the same time the Doctor did, his frown of angry concern morphing into a very targeted ear to ear grin.

“Oh, the _Red_ jay-“

“Roda, she’s-“

The Doctor’s eyes were wide open and panicked. _Oh, what I would give,_ lamented the Master, _to be the one to make him look that way._ He kept that same grin on his face - for appearances sake - and leaned against the wall as he finished the Doctor’s sentence.

“Broken.” _And all it took was her precious forest._

The Doctor shook his head frantically, still trying to stand. The Master just watched him struggle, a smug expression on his face as he contemplated that he had finally broken his enemy. But it seemed… too easy. She had been defiant, he remembered, even though she’d followed his command to the letter. Through every swing of the belt, every blow that tore and bloodied her back, she had held dutifully onto that pipe. _Just as much a soldier as the Freak,_ he thought, _but she doesn_ _’t even know what war she’s fighting anymore. So willing to suffer for a cause; who am_ I _to deny her?_ Even when he’d cinched the belt around her throat, choking her and trying to get her to let go so that he’d have an excuse to destroy her little forest anyway, she had held on, and held tight, hate emanating from her in waves. He had lost his temper, then, for just a minute. And still, the Redjay had _held on._

So why break now? He shook his head, smile faltering as the Doctor reached out for him, eyes begging him to help him into a chair so that he could help _her._ Play the Doctor, satisfy his conscience. It didn’t make any _sense_ _…_

“No - Master, _please_!” The Doctor shook his head, frantically trying to catch his eye, his old man voice croaky but so much more energetic than it had been in a while. That, in itself, caught the Master’s attention as he crossed the room and yanked the Doctor up by his lapels, dropping him into his wheelchair like he _so_ wanted. “You don’t understand - you felt it, I _know_ you did!”

“I felt her _snap,_ ” responded the Master, triumph worn like a mask all over his face. But he was beginning to have his doubts.

“We’re the last three, Koschei.”

“Don’t,” hissed the Master. “Don’t you _dare_ call me that!”

“Koschei,” persisted the Doctor, even as the Master pulled back his hand and got ready to slap him. “Can’t you _feel_ it?”

“I don’t give one _iota_ of a damn about the Redjay, _Theta,_ ” snapped the Master, his eyes flashing with fury. “She brought her beating upon herself with her _sanctimonious_ -!”

« _If I die, will that be enough?_ »

Both Time Lords froze as the Redjay’s delirious thoughts brushed against their minds. The Master stared at the Doctor, eyes snapping left and right as he processed what he was hearing; not just the words, but the resignation in her thoughts, and the fact that she was broadcasting them. _Anyone,_ he thought disdainfully, _with even the_ basic _telepathic training can hear her, it_ _’s like she isn’t even_ trying _to-_

He let go of the Doctor as it dawned on him what had woken him up. Not the cry for help, but the words unspoken in it. A certain energy that had made him think that the Doctor was dying. And the Doctor was - well, not _fine_ but no worse than when he had left him. Which meant that the Redjay was…

“What did you _do_?” asked the Doctor, accusingly. “I know you hate her, but we’re all we have…!”

He wasn’t checking on her because the Doctor wanted him to, the Master told himself, or even because he cared. Not sparing the Doctor another glance he turned on his heel and walked towards the door with purpose, already calculating the fastest route from where he was to where the Redjay’s cell was. He heard the door shut behind him and snapped his fingers at the guards outside the Doctor’s room. They stood to attention, awaiting orders; pointedly not commenting on his state of undress.

“Med bay,” he snapped, icily, already walking away. “If you’re not too _thick_ to understand it, I want the life support system up and running by the time I get there.”

He didn’t wait to see if they followed his orders. He knew that they would. Instead he began power-walking towards the Redjay’s cell, breaking into a run as soon as he was out of sight.

 _Why do I care?_ he asked himself as he moved, rounding corners at a skid and hardly pausing to breathe. _She can die for all I care. One less thorn in my side. The Doctor will get over it._ Making an agitated noise he ran his hands through his hair and started making excuses in his head. _It_ _’s just that she should die at_ my _hand. When_ I _say that she can die. How dare she go and die on me without_ my _permission?! And besides, there_ _’s no_ way _she_ _’s on her final regeneration..._

By the time that he had keyed in the unlock code for her cell he had convinced himself of that. What he wasn’t prepared for was the limp body of the Redjay, obviously up against the door, to land at his feet with a thud. It should have been a sight to behold but as he crouched down, rolling her over to check for a pulse, he could see her chest rising and falling far quicker than it should have been. Her skin, too, was soaked with sweat, and far too hot. _This isn_ _’t my doing._ She wasn’t awake, but her mind was still open, and pressing his fingertips to her temples as he hoisted her upright he pushed through her flimsy mental barriers to find out what the _Skaro_ had happened. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess even for _her_ , but he got flashes of something. Nausea. Tinnitus. Nottingham. Tish Jones. And a bottle of water…

Thrusting her into the arms of the nearest guard and barking orders to take her to the med bay he moved into the room, looking for a discarded bottle. He found it across the room and unscrewed the cap, sniffing tentatively at the contents until his nose wrinkled in knee-jerk disgust. _Lucy_ _’s pills. Aspirin._ He swore and threw the bottle against the wall, fury welling up. How long ago had she taken the pills? Had she done it on purpose or had poor, sweet Tish thought that she was helping? But he knew the symptoms of aspirin poisoning, and the Redjay’s scattered mind suddenly made sense. Confusion, fever, nausea, tinnitus, weakness… _coma_. And it could be fatal to a Time Lord, if they didn’t get an antitoxin fast enough. Fatal, without a regeneration.

He didn’t know why he cared. _I don_ _’t care,_ he told himself, aware how flat it sounded. _I_ really _don_ _’t care if she dies._ But he headed to the med bay anyway, already planning what he would need to do to stabilize her and filter the aspirin from her system - or force her to regenerate. _Whatever it takes to stop the dear Doctor from giving up_ all _hope, that_ _’s all._

There were just three of them, after all. It would be careless to cut that down to two before he was good and ready.

***

“Well, Redjay. You gave the dear Doctor _quite_ a scare.”

She was strapped down to a hospital bed, secured at the arms and legs and across her chest. There was a drip in her arm and an oxygen mask on her face, and her shredded clothes didn’t fit. Roda tried to form a clever response, but it came out more like a mumble, muffled by the mask, and the Master rolled his eyes and turned away from her to check some beeping machine or another.

“Oh just shut up and try not to die again,” he grumbled, barely talking to her. “It’s the middle of the night and the Doctor’s going spare.” A forced laugh. “He’s an old man, you know, he should be getting his beauty sleep.”

Obediently she faded in and out of consciousness, unsure what was a dream and what was real. Nothing hurt, anymore. Her ears were no longer ringing, and the bitter taste was gone from her mouth. But she didn’t want to keep her eyes open, and so knowing that she couldn’t be any worse off than before, she let herself drift into brief, uneasy periods of sleep. She was always tired, after regenerating; even, apparently, if she didn’t remember it. And she didn’t know _what_ to think or how to feel. She had almost died. She had been poisoned, and it had been a mistake. She had wasted a regeneration on this _Skaro_ of a ship, in a fucking prison… yet she was alive. She’d survived. It wasn’t over, and she had another _chance._

A few things woke her, though she feigned sleeping. The Master talking to himself quietly in High Gallifreyan. Someone removing the drip in her arm. A jarring sensation that her legs were too long. The same, centuries-old nightmare of struggling to breathe. Ignorant of her confusion as she slowly pieced together memories obscured by head-fuzz, machines beeped and whistled in the small med bay of the Valiant. Roda felt as though she’d never been so happy to _hear_ the engine of the ship again. Still, she tried to sleep, and rebuilt the memory of the past couple of hours as if it was a dream, and tried to find some explanation for why she was alive that wasn’t ‘the Master’. Because the implication that she owed him _anything_ at all was a horror that didn’t bear thinking about.

“I’m sorry...”

Opening one eye, it took Roda a minute to work out who was talking to her. It was a voice she’d only ever heard on tv, the day the Master had taken over the world. The face attached to it would have been unfamiliar even if it wasn’t over a hundred years old.

Whenever she’d slept last, someone had decided she didn’t need the oxygen mask anymore. Roda breathed a sigh of relief; it had made her feel more like she was suffocating. Like a bubble over her mouth. Swallowing and licking her lips she turned her head towards the sound of the voice, and did her best to sound cheerful. _I_ _’m alive. He’s hurting._ And at least for now, it was just the two of them in the room.

“Doctor,” she said, amicably, throat dry. “Nice of you to drop in.”

He stared at her, surprised either that she was awake, or that she was making jokes. He sat in a wheelchair against the wall, in view of her bed. Roda wondered if it was just another of the Master’s plans to torment him; making him watch her like this. Pushing down her own discomfort and stress, she was determined not to make him worry.

“Roda,” croaked the Doctor, “I-“

“I’m fine, Doctor.” She waggled her fingers in a poor facsimile of a wave. “The Master was kind enough to give me a bed at last.” It was a clumsy attempt at a joke, and the Doctor didn’t laugh. Roda wondered if her sense of humour was going to be awful in this regeneration, or just her idea of timing. But the higher voice was something of a surprise, and she couldn’t help herself from wanting to try it out. _Not had a chance to look in a mirror yet, after all._ “You’ve looked better.”

“I’m not the one whose clothes are covered in blood.”

Roda tried to shrug. “ _Technically_ it’s not mine.”

“Roda…” the Doctor pursed his lips, but she saw a twinkle in his eye. Just a little bit of hope, or relief. _Keep joking,_ she told herself, _and he_ _’ll think you’re okay._

“That’s my name. Do you know,” she added casually, “this is the best I’ve felt in months. Who knew a regeneration was all I needed?” The Doctor flinched, just noticeably, and Roda grimaced apologetically as she looked at the ceiling again. “Too soon?”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Oh, that doesn’t change with regenerations.”

“I thought you’d… that you weren’t going to…”

His voice broke, and Roda’s hearts couldn’t take it. There was something in his words, something about the way he spoke that made her wonder why he took it so personally. Why he felt responsible for… what? For her? For Gallifrey? They had been friends for years, centuries, but they had never known each other all that well. And with everything that the Master had done, and since she’d first fallen through the Rift in Cardiff and learned that their home planet was gone, she’d never had the chance to ask how he had survived the War _too._ Him or the Master.

Now, she decided, would be a bad time.

“But I _did,_ Doctor,” said Roda reassuringly, kindly. Kinder than she felt, as she put her questions to the back of her mind until a ‘better time’ she had to still believe was coming. “So you can stop worrying now.” She paused. “Well. Stop worrying about _me,_ anyway.” She looked over at him again, her expression stern. “Is he hurting you?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Nah. Just feeding me out of a dog bowl.”

Roda’s eyes narrowed in frustration. “He can’t be serious!”

“It’s… fine. You know what he’s like.”

“A sadistic, megalomaniac bastard?”

“Well… he wasn’t always like that. If you’d met him in the Academy…” The Doctor shook his head sadly. “I let him down. He could have been _more_.”

“I don’t even want to think about it.”

The Doctor looked about ready to try and say more, to argue with her, but he thought better of it. _For the best, really._ He had that look in his eyes, the one that Roda knew it was impossible to argue with, and she was in no mood to hear about how the man who’d imprisoned and tortured and killed for months was good inside, after all. _No amount of therapy and hand-holding can fix_ him. But the Doctor had something else on his mind, too. He looked around the room, and then came to some kind of conclusion and lowered his voice.

“I’m just… biding my time. Buying Martha some.”

Roda sighed. “You really believe in her, don’t you?”

The Doctor managed a small smile. “Oh, she’s brilliant, she is. Martha Jones. Going to be a doctor, one day - just you wait!”

It was the right thing to say to take his mind off of _his_ guilt. Roda listened as best she could as the Doctor talked on and on about his latest companion. Let him reminisce and forget himself, for a little while. She tugged absently at the bindings holding her down as he spoke, trying not to let him see, and asked questions where it seemed as though she was meant to, and came to the conclusion that this regeneration of hers still didn’t care for small talk. But it was helping the Doctor, and making her feel useful. _Enough._ A part of her wondered how long the Master would let them talk, and _why_ he was letting them talk… why he’d even brought the Doctor here. It certainly wasn’t out of concern for her. Did he _really_ just want to reassure the Doctor, or were there layers to this… whatever this was?

***

Somewhere down the line she dozed off again and when she woke, the Doctor was gone. The first thing she checked were the restraints with a renewed vigour; testing not just how good they held, but the strength of her new body. The leather seemed to wiggle loose, but it was held pretty tight. _Not the_ worst _restraints you_ _’ve ever been in. C’mon, Roda._ By the time that she had managed to clench and squirm and yank one of her wrists free enough to try and go for the buckles, she was interrupted by the sing-song voice of the last person she wanted to hear from.

“I hope you aren’t thinking of escaping, Redjay.”

With a frustrated _ugh_ of resignation Roda let her arm drop back to the bed, and summoned up the energy for a couple more wise-cracks.

“From such a lovely hotel? Wouldn’t dream of it.” The Master snorted. “Do you mind fluffing my pillows, though? Rassilon and Omega, I’ve had a long day.”

“You know,” commented the Master, casually, forcing her wrist down and buckling it back to the bed by way of answer. “I didn’t give you my permission to die.”

“Here I thought you’d be throwing a party,” replied Roda, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. “Subjecting all of Sol-3 to your terrible taste in music.”

“I didn’t _have_ to save you, you know.” The Master jerked the strap roughly, making it just a little too tight. Roda winced. “The way I see it, you owe me some _respect._ ”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Oh yes,” said the Master, rolling his eyes. “I could see that. Sending out your little psychic distress call was just your way of ‘handling it’.”

“Go swallow some aspirin,” snapped Roda, swiftly losing patience. “Then tell me how lucid _you_ are.”

The knowledge that the Master _had_ done something, and that she hadn’t regenerated on her own, shocked Roda to the core. She turned her head away petulantly, trying to puzzle out his angle. Perhaps he’d given poor Tish the drugs himself, just to see what would happen? Another form of torture? Somehow that seemed most likely. Or maybe he still needed something from her. She’d never once let slip where her TARDIS was hidden, and she’d honestly thought that he’d given up asking. Was this all some long game to earn her gratitude and thanks, or - Gallifrey forbid - her trust? He would never get it, no matter what he did. But the only option that left was that he had saved her life… because he could. And that was too much to believe.

“Why?”

The Master cleared his throat. “You’ll have to speak up, I can’t hear you over all this _lives-saving_ medical equipment.”

“Why didn’t you just let me die?” She couldn’t look him in the eye. “Wouldn’t that have been the icing on the cake for you, after the beating? ‘ _Oh_ ,” she tried to mimic his voice, and decided that she really wasn’t used to her new vocal cords yet, “ _the Redjay is dead, guess I don_ _’t_ have _to keep my promise after all._ ’”

“And you’d rather I had?” Roda stayed silent. “I thought not. I truly mean it when I say I could not care less if you died right here, right now-“

“Bullshit.”

“Language. But the _Doctor_ …” Roda’s eyes widened. “Well, he’d be terribly beat up if I let you add one more Gallifreyan death to his conscience, don’t you think?”

“What the Skaro are you on about?”

The Master’s face lit up like a child at Christmas. He patted Roda on the cheek once and then turned to leave the room. “You know, I’ll think I’ll just leave you with that one.” Stopping in the doorway, he crossed his arms over his chest and glanced down at her. “Don’t mistake this for a kindness.”

“Oh, believe me,” responded Roda, her thoughts already racing as she tried to understand what he’d meant about the Doctor. “I wasn’t.”

“I need you alive,” explained the Master. “Because soon, there’s somebody I want you to meet.”

“Wha-”

“And it really will be _all_ the more joyous an occasion,” concluded the Master, walking out of the room, “when I get to watch them break your hearts in two…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can honestly say that this chapter did not go at all how I thought it was going to...


	7. I'll Shape Your Belief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Master introduces the Redjay to his son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** This is the first place where my universe starts to merge with Elisi's [Not the Last](https://archiveofourown.org/series/21843) universe. From here on out, they're entangled. The titular story of that series (top of the list) is necessary for this one to make total sense (at least chapters 1 and 2), and a highly recommended read.
> 
> _"Guileless Son, each day you grow older  
>  Each moment I'm watching my vengeance unfold"_  
>  **\--Heather Dale, "Mordred's Lullaby"**

The woman on the floor of the Valiant’s ‘throne room’ - as the Master liked to call it - was barely breathing.

While that might have been the point, he had to concede that perhaps, today, he had gone a little too far. Not that he cared at all for her well-being; far from it. A day where the Redjay was below his heel, unable to stand, was a good day in any book that he cared to open. But it was hard to have a captive audience to something that you were very ready to crow about when you managed to make that audience pass out from exhaustion and pain before you had even got to the performance. Maybe he should have had his men hold off on the third round of beatings they’d given her, at his command. Or perhaps he should get some adrenaline, stab it right into her hearts and see how much she _suffered_ as he forced her to stay awake for what he had to show her.

After all, of all the living trophies he had on the Valiant, the Redjay was the one and only prisoner he hadn’t marched out to herald the birth of his son and heir.

He crouched down to one knee, knotting her short, tangled hair in and around his fingers until he had enough of it in his grip to roughly yank her head up. He stroked her throat with his free hand, pressing two fingers against her jugular to look for a pulse. After a moment where he wasn’t sure he could find one - and _hardly_ cared, if anyone had asked, if he did or not - and then he felt the slow, but steady, _tap tap tap tap_ of a pair of hearts struggling to keep on beating. With little care, he let her face drop to the ground once again, and twirled around to face Lucy and Alexander.

At a jerk of his head, his wife danced across the room to hang on his side like a well-tailored suit, his son nestled in her other arm as she looked up at him longingly and lovingly. _Like everyone should,_ he thought to himself, sneering down at the Redjay. _Like Rodageitmososa_ would _, if she had more common sense than stubbornness._ Deep down, though, he knew that she was never going to give up on defying him; and that even if she did, it would take all of the thrill out of the game for him. _For her too, I_ _’d wager. Though she’d never admit it_.

He pressed a quick kiss to Lucy’s swollen lips and a gentler one to the child’s forehead as his rival stirred on the ground, groaning with pain. Beside him, Lucy turned up her nose with the kind of air only a daughter of Lords and Ladies could muster. The Master smirked; he could practically _feel_ the jealousy radiating off his wife; as though the very idea that he would mark another woman disgusted her as much as the sight of said woman did.

“Is that really _her_?” asked Lucy disdainfully. “The ‘Redjay’ you’re always talking about?”

“Yes,” said the Master thoughtfully, cruelly, as he crossed back over to the Redjay and nudged him over onto his back with a callous flick of one steel-toed shoe. “She might have been, once upon a time. Now she’s just another broken _toy,_ just like the Freak.”

 _Oh, but she does turn_ spectacular _shades of purple and blue and red with abuse,_ he thought to himself, enjoying the view of one of the Redjay’s eyes half-closed, and a ring of fingerprints around her trachea. _And they last so much longer than the Freak_ _’s do. Even a week-old baby can see how_ wrong _this is_ _…_ He knew that Alexander would understand every word he was saying. ‘Alexander the Great’, he had called him; the child who would inherit the universe. Inherit it, or conquer it. Either would make his father proud, and the Doctor weep.

He bent down, picking up the Redjay by her torn and tattered lapels - no longer fitting so well, since her unpermitted regeneration - and turned her around to face the baby. She struggled weakly in his arms, but she could barely hold her head up even as she jerked and mumbled cursed words at him in High Gallifreyan. One arm clasped to her chest, keeping her not quite on her feet but at least upright, he looked right over her shoulder and spoke to his son.

“You see this, Alexander?” In the same breath, he held just a _little_ too tightly to the Redjay’s bruised ribs. Lucy shot them a jealous pout. “This is what our race should _never_ become.”

Too legless, to injured to fight herself free, the Redjay still protested. Or at least, she tried to. The Master jerked his chin, enticing a way Lucy to come closer, and let his son see what he should learn to disdain. _Like an apprentice,_ considered the Master, _tutored in the master_ _’s trade._ It was an apt comparison. If Lucy had been concerned that the Redjay would do something or some say something to the child, it washed away at the oblique order from her husband, and she inched closer with a protective grip on Alexander.

It was then that the Redjay found a surge of energy, and tossed her head back in a vain attempt to connection with the Master’s face. Though she caught his cheek, it was barely a glancing blow, and with a roll of his eyes he relinquished his hold on her and let her drop back to the ground. The brunette’s knees rose to hit the floor with a sickening crack, and it was clearly all that she could do to catch herself on lifeless arms before her bruised face followed. She snarled - more animal than human or Time Lord - and the Master couldn’t help but role his eyes.

“F-fuck you…” she hissed into the ground, voice barely more than a whisper.

“Sorry, what was that…?” The Master cupped his hand over his ear, pausing for dramatic effect. “You wanted your mouth washed out with soap again? You didn’t seem to enjoy it, last time.”

The Redjay weakly bared her teeth, and then tried to say something else. “M-Ma-…”

“Pardon?” he asked again, all but crowing. He made to wipe the blood on his hands clean on his own trousers, and then thought better of it and wiped it on the Redjay’s shirt collar as he leaned in closer. It only added to the tapestry of coloures that had already been painted across her skin with bruises and dirt from the ground. _And least she has none of her woad, this time._ “M-M-Master? M-More? M-Madness?” The suggestions slowed to a halt as he tapped and chewed his bottom lip, trying to think of more ‘M’ words. “M-M-Murder the Freak?”

He saw the Redjay’s eyes trail briefly over the limp form of Jack’s body across the room, the blood of three mostly-fresh bullet wounds embedded in his brain trickling down his face. He _had_ tried to warn them both, so many times, what the penalty was for the other’s ill behaviour, but like such disobedient animals they just wouldn’t listen. He had taken three more in the spine when he’d woken, just to kill him all the more slowly, just to make his point all the more clearer. He would wake cuffed to the wall, well aware of who had caused his deaths. The Redjay had stopped fighting back, after that.

Of course, he’d been sure to have Alexander out of the room for that unpleasantness. It simply wouldn’t do if the sound of the gunshot had woken him.

“Ooh!” He snapped his fingers, dragging the Redjay’s attention back to him. Back to what was important. “Or was it m-m-mangle?” He shivered dramatically. “I do _love_ that word.”

The Redjay drove her palms back into the Dalekanium tiles as she desperately tried to stand and fight. _Or stand and make a scene, more likely._ But supporting her weight seemed to prove a task more strenuous than summoning the courage. She only managed to get to her haunches for just a second before slumping back to the ground. She glowered at the ground as she spoke, spitting blood at the floor before trying.

“ _Monster_.”

“Ah, but _dearest_ Roda!” Ever the thespian, the Master brushed down his lapels as he donned a mask of well-practiced pain. He saw her flinch as he used her name, the one reserved for her friends, and let one hand stray to press against his hearts, thumb curled against the haft of his laser screwdriver. His other snaked possessively around Lucy’s waist. “Can a _father_ be a monster?” With a gasp, he transferred his hand from chest to mouth, turning his head to bury it in Lucy’s neck. He gripped his wife’s bare shoulder so tightly that it left parallel fingers of red to match her dress. Motherhood had done _nothing_ to dim her beauty. “If _I_ _’m_ a monster, does that mean by son is too?”

Roda’s eyes widened as a hundred emotions seemed to cross her mind, every syllable striking like a thousand shards of glass. As the Master watched her out of the corner of her eye, he felt Lucy’s scowl deepen and waved an angry, dismissive hand.

“What _would_ the Doctor say if he heard you?” He sighed dramatically. “You should be ashamed of yourself, picking on a Time Tot like that. You’re more _pathetic_ by the millisecond.”

Anger gave Roda the strength to form sentences. Her head snapped up, and her eyes were full of a venom and agony the Master hadn’t seen for a while. It was _delicious._

“I feel sorry for the Tot stuck with _you_ ,” she snarled, through a raw throat. “You and your whore can _both_ fu-!”

The Master moved like lightning, pushing Alexander and Lucy behind him as he grabbed hold of the Redjay’s face with a deft flick of his wrist and silenced her by slamming his palm hard across her mouth. With his other hand he grabbed her by the hair once more, yanking her to her feet as her eyes welled up with tears of pain, only to slam her against the nearest wall, mere inches from the Freak, face first. Ripping his tie from around his throat, scarcely caring who was watching, he tied it so tightly around her wrists that it was practically cutting off the circulation, and used the makeshift restraints to shove her in the direction of the Freak’s cold body.

Without her hands to break her fall Roda hit Jack with a grimace of pain, hip first, and before she had a chance to try and right herself the Master followed up his impulsive attack with a blow to the face that slice a neat crescent moon from just under one eye to one freckled cheek, by her mouth. She winced, trying to push him away, and the Master only laughed at the bead of blood collecting on her cheek like a tear.

“So you _do_ want the soap, then? And here I thought I would be so _kind_ , and introduce you to my son.”

“You,” snapped the Redjay, spitting at him, “are _no_ father.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

It wasn’t Lucy’s trilled outburst that snapped the Master out of his actions but the wail of the baby, startled by the sudden alarm. Glaring at the Redjay - _it was_ her _fault, after all, her barbarism that had upset him_ \- he leapt to his face and pulled his family into a tight embrace as he fished Alexander out of Lucy’s arms. As he cooed, resting one hand gently on the Time Tot’s forehead to soothe him telepathically, he shook his head as though saddened.

Pinning the Redjay to the ground with one boot driven into her kidney, the Master fussed over Lucy and Alexander, not even sparing the exile a glance over his shoulder.

“Dear Lucy _is_ right you know, Roda. What _do_ you know about children?”

“Don’t call me _Roda_ ,” the Redjay hissed, trying to drag oxygen back into her aching lungs in place of a snappy response.

“I mean, really,” the Master continued, ignoring her completely. “ _You_?” He snorted. “A Time Lady, exiled for treason during only her _second_ regeneration?” He raised an eyebrow at Lucy, mouthing ‘can you believe this?’ “A Time Lady who dyes her hair pink, lives among humans and even gets outlawed by _them_?” This time, Lucy joined him in smirking. “You’re an insult to the entire Time Lord race.”

 _That_ struck a nerve that even the Master hadn’t been expecting. Roda’s whole body tensed up, and he almost took a hit from the rush of psychic fury that came his way. _Something to store away to torture her with later, then._

“Oh,” he slapped his hand across his forehead, dropping that topic for now, “but the Pythia’s Curse! How could I forget? Because you always _did_ want children, didn’t you?” Roda let her head drop again, starting to give in - for now. “How does it feel, Roda, to know that _I_ have a child and _you_ …” Trailing off he lifted his toe from her torso too quickly, watching her double over in pain and start choking. “ _You_ never can.”

“Shut up-!” she coughed, eyes wide with fury and over a millennium of coming to terms with a loss. “Shut up, shut _up_!”

“Now now, Redjay, calm down,” laughed the Master, ever patient in his triumph. “I’m _sure_ you can use your words, there’s a good Redjay…”

“Don’t you- don’t you da-!”

“Besides,” he shrugged, “it’s not as though you ever had a family to begin with. Not after mummy died, daddy was murdered and dear old Rassilon-”

“Say another word, Master,” hissed the Redjay, darkly, “and I swear I will… will…”

Roda’s resolve failed her at last. The Master sniffed, snapping his fingers to summon one of his random mooks from across the room. As two hurried over he jerked his head at the Redjay and the Freak, stepping back to let them be dragged to their feet by the callous hands of men now too dead inside to care what orders they were given. The Redjay was hoisted up by the tie, and barely had the legs to support herself, and the Freak was thrown into a fireman’s carry; still very dead, and very cold and unresisting.

The Master waved his wrist in the direction of the door, and turned his back as they were led away, kissing Lucy delicately. “What did I say, love?” Lucy rested her chin on his shoulder, nodding calmly. She didn’t even spare the Redjay another glance, but she laughed as she and the Master spoke in unison.

“Pathetic.”

“Precisely. And so unwilling to respect her Master, after all these months.” He sighed. “I guess some animals really _can_ _’t_ be trained.” Roda opened her mouth to say anything, but the Master had more to come. He addressed his men. “Take them _both_ to her cell, for now. Let them have each other for a couple of hours.” He began to walk towards his throne with Alexander in tow, and paused just in time to get one more jab in. “Oh, and Roda? Why don’t you ask the _Freak_ for help?” He chuckled. “I’m sure he won’t mind one more illegitimate child so long as he gets _laid_. It’s been a while since he and I have had some fun.”

 _The look of horror on the Redjay_ _’s face was well worth the lie_ , thought the Master, as the doors to the throne room slid silently shut behind her, and she began to sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next is a missing scene, [Your Father's a Thief](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27713218/chapters/67851560).


	8. Your Father's a Thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master and the Redjay talk, three days later.

_“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”_  
**― Mark Twain**

In what was either a pique of generosity or some fresh torture - _or,_ Roda considered, _simply evidence that she and Jack weren_ _’t important enough to be recalled_ \- the Master left her and Jack alone in her small cell for almost two days, both her lover and friend was frog-marched out.

He had come to with the usual shock and fury and fear as he always did, breaking Roda’s hearts all over again for the third time that day. His chest heaving, eyes wide as he tried to get some idea of where he was, Roda had thrown herself at him (wrists bound and all) and for the longest time, done nothing but cry.

Jack, for all that he had been shot six times because she had tried to fight back against the beating she received at the hands of the Master’s men, had been the first to recover, and just as willing as always to forgive. Roda had felt considerably more guilty, but hadn’t been able to find it in herself to say to Jack what she wanted to say, and had barely managed to choke out an apology before passing out in a friendly, familiar lap for what was an exhausted sleep several weeks in the coming.

They had talked more when she had woken, as the bruises and cuts on her body had begun to fade. At some point, one of the Jones brought them food, and told them that they seemed to have been ignored, for now. Both of them had torn into it like people starved, neither willing to move further apart than the reach of the others’ touch. Even if it was just a hand on a shoulder, or backs touching as they took care of one another’s trauma and tried to find something to laugh about in what was swiftly becoming one of the top ten worst years of both their lives’.

It was the most they’d been able to talk, in all the months that they’d been imprisoned, without someone watching them for what they might say. The only comfort either of them had been able to seek in just as long.

It was impossible for either of them to hold a grudge against the other, after everything they’d been through both in Torchwood, and on the Valiant. And on the morning that Roda awoke to find that her closest living friend, time’s impossible soldier, had been taken away by the Master’s men in her sleep, it was only the grim win of not giving the Master the satisfaction of seeing her cry that helped her to keep it together.

The Master deigned to join her only a few hours later, and Roda didn’t even bother to try and stand. At least this time she was no longer bound, hands or feet. It made her feel as though she had that little inch more power than she usually had; but only an inch. The Master didn’t even have to draw a weapon, any more, to put fear in the eyes of the prisoners on the Valiant.

None of them were immune. Not anymore. The bastard’s moods were almost impossible to predict, and with so little to go by it was all that any of them could do to steel themselves for the worst and be glad if it didn’t happen.

She felt the Master’s eyes on her for a good couple of minutes, standing in the door of her cell, before he broke the silence. Roda didn’t look at him, busying herself instead with trying to look completely at ease as she tried to get some impossible knot out of her matted hair. _Hasn_ _’t he rubbed enough salt in my wounds, this week?_ She couldn’t help but wonder. _What else does he even have to_ throw _at me, anymore._ Roda knew damn well that ignoring him was only going to make him angry again, but she was too tired to care. Whatever her breaking point was, she knew she was approaching it.

“I suppose _admiring_ silence will have to do, then.”

Impatience, clearly, had won over his sense of dramatic effect, today. Roda raised an eyebrow to herself, cataloging the observation as she tried to work out which Master she was dealing with today. _The one that likes to hear the sound of his own voice, she decided. So the annoying one, then._ Still, she didn’t look at him and still, she kept her mouth shut; all of her willpower going into that small, silent act of defiance. He expected her to rise to the bait, but today her hearts weren’t in it - and that would piss him off more than anything else.

_I guess I_ _’m a glutton for punishment._

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Despite herself, Roda couldn’t help but snort, and the tone of the Master’s voice perked up just a little. “Although really, that’s gratitude for you. Here I thought you’d be throwing yourself at my feet and singing my praises for what I have to tell you.” He paused, cracking his neck as he tried to entice her into asking ‘what’. “After all, the Pythia’s Curse was an absolute _Skaro_ of a nasty thing to work around…”

Roda’s head snapped up in utter disbelief, even though she knew that it was the reaction he had been goading for, even though she’d known that there had to be _some_ sort of meddling he’d done, to have a child. At first, she’d thought that maybe it was a human child he was claiming as his own, until she’d realised how ridiculous the prospect would be to him. And besides; she knew a Time Tot when she saw one. Too clever by far, and much quieter than any child with a lesser telepathic radius than they had. They swiftly bonded to the parents, too, which explained why the Master had been able to silence the child’s sobbing with little more than a touch. And though she’d tried not to think about it, just _how_ he had managed to sire a child without a loom had been eating her up inside since that day.

She shuffled backwards, using the wall to pull herself to her feet - she still ached, even if most of the obvious damage had already healed - and raised her chin to meet the Master eye to eye. He was taller than her - still - and didn’t need to keep a hand on the wall for balance - which was more than a little annoying - but she felt better talking to him without him looming over her on the ground. She raised her eyebrow, worked her aching jaw, and tried to bite down the nausea of what she was about to do.

“ _Tell me_.”

“Oh, tut tut,” responded the Master, cheerfully. “No magic word? No begging?”

Roda narrowed her eyes, pursing her lips with an effort not to say something more aggressive. _There_ _’s no way I’m playing more nice with him than I_ have _to._ Throwing up one hand as though in resignation of trying to train an unruly dog, the Master sighed.

“Well, that’s one strike _already._ I thought you’d at least _try_ to be polite.”

The Master was dangling a poisonous carrot in front of her eyes and they both knew it. But for the first time in their unfriendly acquaintance he held all the cards. Or very nearly every one. The only trump card Roda had was that she could – easily – end his fun quite ultimately. But they both knew that she wouldn’t do _that_ , either; her survival instincts, even very nearly broken as she was now, were too keen.

Roda closed her eyes, swallowing hard. This was too important a piece of news for her to lose her temper, or go for the Master as she so dearly wanted to. She still couldn’t wrap her head around it, even after the clarity of finally, just for once, being left alone to clear her head for a couple of days. _The Master knows a way to get around the Pythia_ _’s Curse without a Matrix… did he build a loom? Break time?_ She knew that there was a TARDIS on the Valiant; even before he’d crowed about it, she had heard it suffering. Felt it as he hacked it apart, trying to cannibalize it. (He had been trying to break her for months, to find out where she had sent her TARDIS, when the avalanche had happened. Where it was hidden. But she would not let him rip it to pieces just for _parts_.)

But if she’d had any thought that he was lying to her, his son was irrefutable proof that he had achieved… something. And as much as she hated him for it, as much as she feared for what his child could grow up to become, she wanted what he had so, _so_ bad.

There had been cases, she knew, of Time Lords who had successfully fathered children with near-Time Lord surrogate mothers, but they were few and far between; and in most of those cases that she’d heard about, something had gone wrong. The child would be less of a Time Lord, or sickly, or not reach adulthood. Of course, the Pythia’s Curse hadn’t been the _end_ of their race, only the beginning of a hunt for an alternative. In the dawning of Rassilon’s era, they had looked to the Matrix, to science, for help. They had created the Looms, taught themselves how to create life from DNA without a host parent. But even before the destruction of Gallifrey, Roda’s exile had cut her off from that option. _After all,_ she thought bitterly, _what would Rassilon have said if I_ _’d been able to_ breed _?_

For now, she bit down her pride. The Master wasn’t here to torture her, not this time. _At least, not physically._ Leaning against the wall as nonchalantly as she could manage she held his case with all the ferocity of centuries left to her own devices, and calmly gave him what he wanted to hear.

“Tell me… please.”

“Was that so hard?”

The Master entered the room properly, striding over to Roda without an ounce of evident fear and patting her deceptively gently on the cheek. She pulled a face - which he no doubt noticed, and ignored - and ignored him in turn as he linked his arm with hers and made a sweeping gesture towards the door. Allowing herself to bed led out of it - confused both by the gesture and the lack of obvious guards lingering outside of her cell - she barely grimaced as the Master let his fingers trail up her forearm, his hold on her just a little too tight to be comfortable.

She did her best not to look out the windows as they passed them, not wanting to give herself a glimpse of something _else_ she couldn’t have. Still limping a little as she kept up with wherever she was being taken - which seemed to be nowhere in particular - Roda kept one eye on the Master and one eye on the path ahead of her as she tried, mentally, to map corridors while waiting for her rival to _deign_ to grace her with his secrets.

“This is nice.”

“What?” she snapped, before she could catch herself. Her nose wrinkled, and if anything his pleasant stroll was more off-putting than the idea of him punctuating his point with well-placed laser shots or the crack of a whip.

“You, me,” the Master laughed, tapping his toes to some song that seemed to be playing on the sound system as they walked, “strolling through my _palace_ again. Only this time, I’ve already conquered the realm and you’re my prisoner.”

“Well,” said Roda, biting the inside of her cheek so hard that she practically drew blood from the effort of not saying something she’d live to regret. “Pleasant for _you_ , maybe.”

The Master reached around to ruffle her hair this time, instead of patting her cheek. “Good girl. See, isn’t it much better when you don’t struggle?”

That he was drawing out answering the question was driving Roda almost as insane as his most recent game was.

“I thought you _liked_ it when I struggle?” she asked rhetorically, calmly, and darkly. The Master chuckled, spinning them both around as he took a corner seemingly at random.

“Oh, of _course_ I do. But if you wanted to kneel at my feet-”

“No.”

“And swear your un _dying_ loyalty,” he suggested, ignoring her swift and short protest. “I’d survive!”

“There is not a chance in _Skaro_ of that ever happening.”

“No,” he said, mock-sadly. “I would imagine not. So!” The Master wriggled his arm in Roda’s to clap his hands, rubbing them together. “Would you prefer I get down to business.”

“Please,” said Roda, sarcastically.

“Please…”

She took a deep breath, and a long sigh. “Please, _Master_.”

“Ooh…” he purred. “That sends _shivers_ down my spine. I was so sure that was going to be strike two, as well! Now, where was I? Ah, yes. I was going to tell you how much _cleverer_ I am than you.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“In the ship? Nowhere in particular.”

“Oh,” said Roda, rolling her eyes despite herself, “just get to the fucki-”

“Ster- _rike_ two!” The Master let go of Roda so suddenly that she almost lost her balance and hit the deck. Tripping as she tried to catch herself, one hand on the wall, she didn’t notice the Master draw his laser until it dangled pointedly between his fingers. “Oh Roda, Roda, Roda, weren’t you listening?” He grabbed her arm, hoisting her back to his feet so harshly that his fingernails dug into her skin. “You never _were_ a quick one.”

“Maybe if you ever made it a fair fight,” snapped Roda, snatching her arm back. She rubbed the identical red crescent welts that were rising on her skin reproachfully, but began following the Master as he started walking again, not caring about the casual pain he’d inflicted.

By now it was becoming clear that she _wasn_ _’t_ being taken anywhere. _He just wants a conversation,_ she realised with an incredulous start. _He_ actually _wants to talk to me. His son is just an excuse._ They had been wandering aimlessly through the corridors of the Valiant on a path that only the Master seemed to know, and for the first time Roda got an idea of exactly _how_ large the warship really was. _No wonder my escape attempt didn_ _’t work. There’s practically miles to go before you even reach a vent._

The Master had fallen silent, as if musing over Roda’s last statement. From time to time he opened his mouth as if to say something, or began tapping out a four-time beat against his thigh, but he seemed to trust that she was going to keep following him. _As if I have a choice._ Finally - when Roda was just about ready to pull out her hair or demand that he say _something, anything -_ he finally stopped walking and turned to her, clasping her shoulders and staring into her eyes.

Expecting that he was going to try and force his way past her mental walls Roda steeled herself. She felt the metal of his screwdriver against her shoulder, but his fingers weren’t on the buttons. He only tsked once and then tilted his head to one side.

“Your eyes don’t match.”

She blinked. Of all the things he could have come out with, _that_ was pretty far down the list.

“…what?”

“Your last regeneration,” he grimaced, as though he was _genuinely_ put out by what had happened. He tapped her nose. “One green, one blue.”

She hadn’t known. “ _And_ …?” It wasn't as though he let her have a mirror.

The Master snorted. “Maybe evolution’s going backwards for you. It didn’t have much to work with, anyway.”

“Is that why we’re ‘chatting’? So you can get a look at my new regeneration?”

“Well I was so busy punishing Tish,” Roda flinched, “I never really got a good look at you until yesterday.”

“She’s not-?”

“Oh, no. Hardly touched her. Pretty little thing,” he grinned viciously, “wouldn’t want to leave any lasting marks. Not like you and the Freak.” Somehow, it didn’t ease Roda’s concern or guilt. “But, no.” He let Roda’s shoulders go, and batted his eyelashes at her. “Is it so difficult to believe I might want to _help_ you, like _any_ good Master?”

“You’re _not_ a good Master.”

“Ah!” He patted her cheek triumphantly. “So I _am_ your Master.” Roda chose to keep her mouth shut. “Worth a try.”

“Hmm.”

“Were you paying attention?” Roda frowned in confusion. “When I mentioned the Freak?”

“What _about_ Jack?”

“I’m sure you can put two and two together.” The Master raised an eyebrow. “You _have_ fucked him, right?” Roda said nothing. “Either way. I ran some tests when Lucy was carrying my little miracle.” _So the boy wasn_ _’t planned…_ “On me and the incubator. Found a few little _surprises_ in our genome. Some things that were easier to manipulate than I expected. After all,” he beamed, “couldn’t have Alexander not making it to term.”

“Gallifrey _tried_ that,” protested Roda, wrinkling her nose. “Humans, silurian, trakenites, argolin. Before you were even loomed.”

“None of them had _my_ tenacity,” sniffed the Master, “my _genius_. Although, I _have_ worn trakenite. Very fetching.”

“Right.”

“No one but _me_ found the missing link,” boasted the Master, “funny how I worked it all out when I never even planned on having an heir, isn’t it?”

“You need to _die_ to have an heir.”

The Master sniffed. The Master sniffed. “It’s politics, Roda, you wouldn’t understand.” He paused, shrugged and spread his hands acquiescently. “I’ll give you that. But you can’t bring down a government without knowing how it works.”

“I can take down _you_.”

“Tried,” sang the Master, “and failed.”

“By all means,” smirked Roda, taking the initiative to start walking this time before the Master did. _Hopefully he won_ _’t shoot me in the back._ “Give me back my bow, and I’ll happily give it another shot.”

“And you call _me_ the monster,” the Master pouted. “I _might_ have let you have it for good behaviour, but…”

Roda paused mid-step. “But _what_?”

“I’m afraid your little _pea-_ shooter didn’t survive Nepal. Snapped in two,” sighed the Master dramatically, “just like Doctor Harper’s-”

She wasn’t sure if it was the news about her bow, or the Master talking so casually about Owen’s death, but Roda finally lost her cool. Without any thought for repercussions or who the Master would take it out on, Roda leapt for him, hands going straight for his neck. The Master didn’t have time to react, and she had the satisfaction of watching his eyes widen in alarm as he tried to parry with a shot from his laser screwdriver that scorched a mark in the ceiling instead as they both tumbled to the ground.

For once, Roda threw the first punch. It landed squarely on the Master’s nose, and she couldn’t help but grin with horrid satisfaction as she felt it snap to the side. She shook blood off her knuckles as the Master tried to throw her off him with a snarl, dropping his screwdriver, and the two rolled head over heels before Roda could try and get in another hit. Her knee went up towards his groin - she wanted to get a good one in, no matter what the cost - but the Master’s elbow dug into her gut first, snatching the last of the breath in her lungs. Switching to respiratory bypass, she managed to sink his teeth into his arm as she grabbed it in both hands, no longer caring how feral she seemed, and half-cheered when he yowled in pain.

The noise of their skirmish quickly brought guards. The Master slapped her hard enough that she let go of his arm - her jaw screaming at her as her teeth rattled in her head - and Roda managed to finally slam her heel into his balls as two pairs of hands grabbed her from above and lifted her kicking and swearing (in every language she knew) off the seething body of her foe. It didn’t take long for the two armed guards to subdue her no matter how hard she struggled and kicked, and her arms were swiftly pinned behind her back by one as the other straightened her up with an armoured forearm against her chest. She panted, still furious beyond belief, as the Master dragged himself to his feet with a grimace of pain and narrowed his eyes at her.

It was a look that promised her that no matter how much _he_ hurt, she was about to hurt much… _much_ more.

 _Well,_ the thought crossed her mind. _This regeneration was fine while it lasted._

Grabbing his nose and crunching it back into shape without making a sound, the Master assessed Roda coolly as she tired herself out and let herself hang in the guards’ arms. Her feet no longer touched the floor, but she knew that tried to kick him - or them - would get her nowhere. Attacking him had been a mistake… but she didn’t care. _Except if he kills me,_ she mused, _then there_ _’ll be nobody else to distract him from hurting_ Jack.

“Strike three,” announced the Master, far too calmly. _Calm Master is the worst Master._ Blood reddened his face, trickling down from his nose as he pursed his lips. “I’m disappointed. Unsurprised,” he grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to look up at him, “but disappointed.” He threw her head away, shaking his head.

“I don’t _care_ ,” hissed Roda, vibrating with anger and yet energized. _He bleeds. The bastard_ bleeds. That small fact gave her some dark solace for the past few months.

“You know,” the Master said, thoughtfully. “I was going to take this indiscretion out on the Freak or the Doctor,” Roda paled, “but I think it’ll be far more beneficial to me and _my_ child,” emphasis on the possessive, “if I treat you like the animal you are.” He poked at the bite on his arm. “Muzzle you, hood you.” His blank expression turned into a wide, terrifying smile. “I _could_ do with a guinea pig. Alexander is a medical miracle after all, I’ll need another Time Lord to test any procedures he needs out on.”

Nausea began to grip Roda. This was a new low, even for the Master… and she had walked right into his trap. What if he’d wanted this all along…? The real reason he hadn't let her die.

“You’re insane.”

“Maybe I am,” trilled the Master, snapping his fingers to have his mooks follow him as he turned away. “But let’s continue this conversation somewhere much more comfortable for me.”


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after The Year That Never Was, Roda is reintroduced to Alexander Saxon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.”_   
>  **― William Shakespeare, 'The Merchant of Venice'**

**TORCHWOOD, 2009**

“Roda! Thought you were the Doctor.”

“That was the idea; that particular blue police box never starts enemy fire on Sol-3.”

Earth had been a difficult place to live since The Year That Never Was, and Captain Jack Harkness knew that that sentiment tenfold for Rodageitmososa.

Honestly, he'd had no idea when he'd see her next, and was pleasantly surprised that she'd only been gone about two years. (She had missed of all the fun with John, which was probably for the best; but if she was back, she’d probably look over the files at _some_ point, and he supposed he’d have to catch her up to speed on what she’d missed in Cardiff. Which, thankfully, hadn't been too much. And he hoped she was back; the Hub hadn’t really been the same without her, after everything they’d gone through together. And oh, he would need to tell her about him and Ianto. No doubt she'd have something to say along the lines of 'about time'.) She’d taken him aside, not long after the Doctor had dealt with the Master and Lucy and Alex and a _long_ time after she’d just _slept_ for what had felt like days, locked away in her TARDIS. Explained that she needed space, but that she promised to return. Jack had a feeling she'd not been able to face the Doctor at the time, either. The Doctor had asked Jack where she was, but he hadn’t betrayed Roda’s trust before, and he hadn’t been about to start _then._ Wherever she had gone off in her TARDIS was her business and her business alone. He had told the Doctor she needed time. It wasn’t _exactly_ a lie.

He knew the way that they’d dealt with the Master, after everything that had happened over the course of that year, had grated on her. What he _hadn_ _’t_ known until the Doctor had explained to him, once time was reversed, was all of the history that _she,_ too, had with the Master. He’d known that there was _something_ between them from the attention he had shown her on the Valiant, but Jack hadn’t been in much of a position to ask questions, and Roda hadn’t been particularly forthcoming with details. _Not that she ever_ is _forthcoming with details. Need to know, until she trusts you. That's our Roda._ She had told him at some point in the year that the Master had once tried to kill her, and that she’d spoiled a plan of his… but that was as much as she'd felt like talking about. The Doctor had filled in the gaps, even if it wasn't entirely his story to tell.

God, though, it was good to see her. Stepping around the boys - lounging on the floor of his office in the Hub, playing with Lego - he opened up his arms and couldn’t help but laugh as Roda fell into them as though nothing had changed. The warmth she felt for him practically radiated off her and he buried his face in her hair, holding onto her tightly.

When they finally broke apart Jack held her at arm’s length, both checking her for any injuries that she had taken on her travels - she could have been away for a decade, for all he knew - and checking out her new body. They hadn’t had much time together on the Valiant, and a not insubstantial part of him was eager to get to know her below her clothes, too. Or even just get naked and close. Not when he was babysitting, though. The identity of the children behind him forgotten, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips and laughed as Roda ran one hand over his jaw fondly, and then gave her some room to breathe.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, honestly. “But you could have _called_ first. I’d have sent the boys home and made the bed.”

Roda - who had stepped out of a TARDIS that had landed in the corner of his office, definitely flattening some paperwork that he didn’t particularly care about - looked over Jack’s shoulder; clearly having not noticed, until now, that they had company. She blinked for a second, pleasantly surprised to see a pair of children, and looked prepared to introduce herself before Jack saw the colour drain from her cheeks.

The penny dropped at the back of his mind. _Alexander. She hasn_ _’t seen Alexander since…_

“Roda, let me-”

As he opened his mouth to explain a pair of bodies - one nine, one knee-high and old beyond his years - threw themselves at his legs, laughing delightedly. Roda looked over her shoulder as Jack reached out to grab her - wanting to stop her from running off in her TARDIS again before he could _explain_ \- but the children tugged insistently at his trouser legs, demanding his attention. He shot Roda a pleading look - _please stay, please don_ _’t leave again_ \- and crouched down to their level, careful to keep his face (and his thoughts) as level as he could before he spoke to them.

“Steven, Alexander. What have I said about interrupting…?”

Steven pursed his lips - he had just turned nine, and had come to the conclusion that it meant he was very grown up, since he would be going to secondary school soon enough - but Alexander raised his chin up with a decorum that far surpassed his age - were he human - and had the grace to shuffle his feet.

“Not to.”

“Correct.” Jack put his hands on their heads, and smiled pleasantly. “But I’m sure you’re both _very_ sorry.” The boys nodded insistently, and Steven held out a… truck? It was a little hard to tell.

“I made the SUV!” he explained, holding up the multi-coloured Lego creation in both hands until Jack took the hint and held it up to the light to study it. He hummed and nodded as though it was a fine piece of art, and absentmindedly handed it to Roda. After a moment of hesitation, she plucked it out of her hand, poking at the pieces of Lego as though she’d never seen it before. _Which, I guess, maybe she hasn_ _’t._ “Do you like it?”

“I love it!” exclaimed Jack, all grins. “What do you think, should we get Ianto to paint the SUV those colours?” He looked at Roda out of the corner of his eye, hoping the joke would get her to relax a little, and smiled a little more warmly as he saw the side of her eye twitch with _non-_ Master related horror.

“That would be silly,” announced Alexander, as Jack wrapped his arm across his grandson's shoulder. Steven rolled his eyes, but didn't push him away, and Jack resolved to hang onto the moments where he was still the cool uncle for as long as he could. Beside him Alexander stood as calmly as ever - it was impossible to work out his age, from his actions alone - and surveyed his own Lego creation held in two small, pudgy hands. “You’d be seen by _everyone_.”

“He… has a point…” said Roda, casually. A little too casually, Jack would wager. It probably took a lot out of her to say that she agreed with the Master’s son. _Although, his behaviour probably makes more sense to a Time Lord than it does to me. Steven would've put the Lego in his_ mouth _at Alex's age._ “And a… spaceship.”

“It’s the Millenium Falcon,” announced Alexander, apparently yet to read the room as Jack knew he was perfectly capable of doing. _Or perhaps he already_ has, _and he_ _’s just calming us all down with Lego. Wouldn’t be the worst misuse of telepathy in history._ “Or it’s meant to be. The colours aren’t right. But it matches Igglepiggle."

“We’ve been over this,” said Jack, eyebrow raised. “You’re too old for that Lego set.” _In front of other children_ went unspoken, but Alexander had gotten swiftly used to being told that. But it didn’t stop him from pouting until Jack looked at _his_ creation, too.

Jack looked from the Lego build, to Steven, and then to Roda with a sheepish look on his face. Not willing to come closer, she reached out for his grandson at arm’s reach. Steven looked from Roda to Jack - as if trying to decide if she was to be put into the stranger danger box, or the weird friend of his uncle box - and then tentatively approached as Roda crouched down to his level. She held out a hand awkwardly, and he shook it while pulling a face that very much said 'ugh, grown-ups'. But Jack saw Roda's shoulders relax a little, now that there was someone between her and Alexander. _Not that she would_ consciously _use a child as a living shield,_ he thought, _but if it puts her at ease..._ But she looked almost as though she thought Alexander was about to start shooting lasers out of his eyes, or something.

Roda handed Steven’s Lego SUV back to him, and tidied up the stray bits of fringe that had gotten into the boy’s face.

“I guess you’re Steven?” she asked, cheerfully, tickling the boy in the stomach until he began to giggle and nearly dropped the SUV. Jack fought down a wave of affection at how cozy Roda looked, and how quickly Steven had stopped side-eyeing her and started laughing. _She's always been good with kids._ “My name is Roda.”

“That’s a funny name.”

“Steven!” Jack looked aghast, giving up his detailed scrutiny of the Millenium Falcon. Roda snorted.

“Where I come from,” she teased, “ _Steven_ is a weird name.”

“Is not.”

“Is too,” countered Roda, sticking out her tongue. Steven crossed his arms, and looked to his uncle for support. Jack tried not to laugh at him.

“She’s from… Scotland,” he explained weakly. _Roda was sort of a Scottish name, wasn_ _’t it? "_ There’s lots of Rodas up there.”

“None like this one,” Roda said, winking. "There's no other Rodas like me." She looked from side to side, and then stage-whispered behind one hand. Jack, however, didn't notice the way she was constantly watching Alex, over his grandson's shoulder. "Between you and me, though, I'm not from Scotland. I'm from outer space."

Steven nodded slowly, as though this made _perfect_ sense. “Is that why you have blue paint on your face?”

“It’s to scare bad aliens, and children who stay up past their bedtime,” she announced, tearing her gaze from Alexander pointedly.

"My bedtime's nine," said Steven, proudly. Jack chuckled.

Roda paused, thinking the statement over as she tapped her bottom lip. Then, she smudged the blue paint on her face and wiped it on Steven’s face. “There. Now you’re like me. Now you can scare away the bad aliens and stay up as _late_ as you like. Never mind what Uncle Jack says."

Jack made a show of throwing his hands in the air, careful not to disrupt the Millenium Falcon in the process. " _Now_ what am I going to tell his mother?"

Roda stuck out her tongue. "That I'm _much_ more fun than you."

"Yeah she is, Uncle Jack." Steven beamed. "And I have alien paint, so I don't have a bedtime."

"Give me strength..."

Thankfully for Jack - who was already trying to think up what he was going to explain to Alice, when she came to pick up Steven - the grown-ups bickering heralded the end of his grandson's attention. With a wave at Roda, he returned to the Lego, dismantling the SUV and frowning at the pile of discarded brick as he began the very important lesson of deciding what to create next. Jack shot Roda a warning, if fond look, hoping to say 'bedtimes are important' with just his eyes. She shrugged, just a hint of sadness in her eyes. But at least she didn't look like she was about to go running for the door anymore.

 _How would Alice feel,_ he wondered, _if I suggested Roda as a babysitter?_ He wouldn't _have_ to mention she was a co-worker; Or an alien, for that matter. But Steven liked her, and if he could trust her with his life than he could trust her with kids, and he couldn’t help but wonder if getting to spend more time around them might help Roda with her own pain. He remembered the time they'd spent on the Valiant, every day. But the worst day for Roda, he knew, was the night she'd spent in his arms, beaten black and blue, her wrists bound behind her back, crying not because it hurt but because of how the Master had used Alex's _existence_ against her. How ashamed she felt for being _jealous_ of their tormentor; for being angry at a baby.

He wanted to reach out to her or say something, but what could he do in front of Alexander? He wasn't sure if the toddler would _remember_ Roda, but he certainly wouldn’t be happy to hear that she hated his father… Alex, however, broke the silence before Jack could think of what to do. The Lego had been forgotten, and he was holding onto his soft toy tightly. Roda froze as a small, determined voice asked: “Are you angry at me because you think my Daddy is a bad alien?”

And all over again, the look that flashed across Roda’s face was like a trapped animal. She opened and shut her mouth, clearly at a loss as to what to say. Jack could see her trying not to get angry, biting down memories of her own, and then seeming to collapse in on herself a little like a burst balloon. Instead of responding straight away, she reached for Jack’s desk chair with a shaking arm and slumped into it, hand over her mouth as she got her thoughts together. Any effort she’d been putting into shielding her mind had slipped away. Even Jack could feel her unease, and the way that she was torn between fury and ‘he is a _child_ ’ in equal parts, and he saw Steven tense up across the room, confused by his sudden, alien emotion.

Opening a nearby drawer with a cacophony of rattling pens and paperclips, Jack hurriedly thrust a chocolate bar into his grandson’s with instructions to go and play with Gwen and not touch anything important. By the time he shut the office door behind him, Roda and Alexander seemed to be at an impasse. Neither of them were breaking the silence, and they were both watching each other intently from across the room. A two year old and a Time Lady older than even Jack was. It was... a strange sight.

“I’m not… angry at _you_ ,” said Roda, finally. Unconvincingly, though Jack was sure it was the truth. “I… don’t like your…” she choked out the word. “ _Father_.”

“Is it because of me?”

Roda pulled a face. “…no.”

“You’re lying.”

“Alexander…” warned Jack, wondering if he should step between them, or not.

“But she _is_ ,” Alexander stressed, stamping his foot on the ground. He scowled, sticking out his bottom lip. “I remember her.”

Jack could only blink in surprise. Roda gnawed at her bottom lip, but nodded as though this made complete sense.

“It isn’t _you_ ,” repeated Roda, from behind the table.

“It’s who I _am_.”

Roda paused. “It’s… _why_ you are,” she said, finally, looking at Jack as if to say ‘did I go too far?’ Jack could only shrug; this was considerably over his pay grade, and he was beginning to wish the Doctor was having to deal with this shit, and not him. _Actually, maybe I should call him. Just in case..._

But the answer seemed to satisfy Alexander. He mulled it over for a moment, still frowning, and then nodded sagely.

“Yes. I understand.”

He nodded again, and then started to walk towards Roda, holding out his hand. If Alexander was offended when Roda pushed herself to her feet and took a step away from him, he didn’t show it; he simply kept holding out his hand for her to shake, as mature as no two year old he had ever met before, and waited patiently for Roda to accept it. Slowly, she bent down and took it, clearly half expecting her fingers to catch fire or something. Alexander squeezed her hand once, shaking it as though he was thirty or forty years old - had he learned that from his father, or the Doctor? - and then grinned broadly.

“There. I’m not my Daddy. So we can be friends, right? And Igglepiggle?"

Roda swallowed, and then smiled. She sat down cross-legged on the floor, took a deep breath, and took the thumb still covered in woad and tentatively put a dab of it on Alex's nose.

"Right. Friends."

The boy's face broke into a grin almost more excited than Jack had ever been before, and soon he was holding out his toy for the same treatment. Jack sighed, but couldn't help but smile as well. _If Roda not freaking out and the Master not losing his temper about it is the price to pay for having to navigate bedtime all over again, then I guess I can cope._ Still, there would have to be baby steps. And so he sat down on the other side of Roda, and offered her his hand to hold while Alex regaled them of whatever story was on his mind, now that an inch of the ice had been broken. Roda took it and squeezed tight, resting her head on Jack's shoulder. She was still tense... but the trust was overwhelming.

And somehow, the miracle child had begun to build a bridge that Jack had been worried they'd never be able to cross. 


End file.
